Apple 10.4.11 Update Can Brick Macs With Boot Camp

g-san writes "Some Mac users are having problems with the latest 10.4.11 update, yours truly included. The problem seems to be caused by the presence of a Boot Camp partition and renders the Mac unable to reboot after the update fails. Note the Geniuses at the Apple stores are recommending a full disk wipe; but data can be recovered via Firewire." MacNN has a note up that if you fall victim to this "known issue" and need to reformat the disk, you can't reinstall Boot Camp because it is no longer available to OS X 10.4 Tiger users.

Comments

Macs

[Tumbleweed]

"They just _work_."

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

Gasp! Something makes them unable to run... WINDOWS!!!

MS has the same thing. It's called "VISTA"

Re:Macs

[Creepy Crawler]

You forgot the joke...

"They just _work_."

Your mom?
Your pocketbook?
. . . NOT!!! (like borat)
like an elephant?

So, whats the joke?

Re:Macs

[CoreDump01]

If you can get it to work again via routine tasks (like reinstalling the OS on HDD) it is technically not a brick. A "bricked" Mac would almost always require you to send in the machine to the manufacturer to unbrick.

Re:Macs

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Yeah if you're running a beta boot loader that you've hacked to prevent it from expiring (or intentionally set your system clock to a couple months ago) and you install an OS system update on it without waiting to see how it works on other people's hacked machines, then your system may not boot until you fix it. Why is the OS relevant in this case again?

Re:Macs

[cloricus]

Moreso what is with the over use of the term 'bricked' lately. My understanding was that 'to brick a device' was to make it unusable ever again creating a possibly expensive paperweight. The last handful of stories using the term (mostly related to Apple) have all had undo solutions leaving the hardware in a working state. Did a miss a memo some where a long the way?

Re:Macs

[alex4u2nv]

lol: So much for those PC vs Mac campaigns ;p

Re:Macs

[Ajehals]

I agree that it does not render the MAc bricked, but I'd dispute that reinstalling an OS is routine. It might be simple, fast, easy etc.. but its not and shouldn't have to be routine.

Re:Macs

[kernelfoobar]

Didn't you know? 'brick' is a buzzword and as you know, to be popular, you have to use buzzwords as much as you can regardless if it applies or not. It's the same type of people that write: l33t h4x0r pwn3s you n00b5 LOLs!!!!111

Re:Macs

[arminw]

.....but I'd dispute that reinstalling an OS is routine....

With Macs, unlike Windows, it is definitely NOT routine. I wonder, does this update only screw up Macs that also have a Windows OS installed? From the article, it seems to be the case. Moral: If you want to run Windows, get a cheap Dell and be happy.

Re:Macs

[that this is not und]

Yes. A bricked Mac was back when there was that audio CD with the copy-protection scheme, that crashed the OS as soon as the disk was inserted, and on all subsequent reboots. Since the Mac doesn't have a physical eject button for the CD, the whole system unit had to be shipped to a repair depot where they could eject the offending CD.

Now, _that_ was a bricked Mac.

Re:Macs

[Poltras]

I'd dispute that reinstalling an OS is routine. You've obviously never worked neither with Gentoo, uh.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

"Beta. YMMV."

Re:Macs

[TheGreek]

A bricked Mac was back when there was that audio CD with the copy-protection scheme, that crashed the OS as soon as the disk was inserted, and on all subsequent reboots. Since the Mac doesn't have a physical eject button for the CD, the whole system unit had to be shipped to a repair depot where they could eject the offending CD.

1) Power on the computer.
2) Wait for the chime (don't have to do this on Intel, but I always did with PPC).
3) Hold down mouse/trackpad button until CD ejects.

Re:Macs

[xENoLocO]

This comment is offensive to the n00b5 worldwide who have in fact been pwn3d by l33t h4x0rz.

Re:Macs

[Ajehals]

I use Debian, frankly I can't remember when I last reinstalled the OS on my main desktop, sure I've dd'd my way to new hardware and update/upgraded along the way, but reinstall? Nope.

Re:Macs

[Repton]

Huh?

The bootloader doesn't expire. The only thing that expired is the Boot Camp partitioning software. Existing boot camp partitions, and your ability to boot into them, are unaffected by Boot Camp Beta's expiry.

Re:Macs

[Reverend528]

1) Dual boot OS X and Windows
2) ???
3) Failure!

Re:Macs

[kestasjk]

What?! I haven't seen anything about these users running a beta boot loader hacked to prevent it expiring, it only seems to be related to Boot Camp.

Why is the OS an issue? Well on non-Apple PCs booting into other OSes is taken for granted, and isn't expected to affect OS updates. Apparently on Macs booting into other OSes is an amazing new innovation called "Boot Camp", and an update to an OS causes the ability to dual boot to break, and requires you to reformat your entire hard disk.

Can you imagine if a Windows update made your computer unable to boot if you had it set up to dual-boot into Linux? Why do people rush to the defense of Apple when they completely fuck up and make a mockery of their cheesy "it just works" phrase?

Re:Macs

[fireman sam]

My M4X0R 1Z 8R1X0RD ... Damn I'm 4 1337 H4X0R!

*translation*

My Mac is bricked ... I am a loser.

Re:Macs

[Swift2001]

Well, there were 10 upgrades to 10.4 before this. They worked mostly fine. Fine for me, but I understand that a small percent had trouble now and again. I'd call that routine. And I just upgraded to Leopard. I had a backup all set aside. My plan was to Erase and Install, and then suck all the data and programs off my backup. A friend said, "No. Just try the upgrade. Then, if it doesn't work, you can erase and install." Half and hour later, I booted into Leopard, and everything... just... worked.

Re:Macs

[dwater]

I wonder if this could be a valid argument :

The term 'Mac' actually refers to the operating system, and since the operating system is no longer usable, it is effectively bricked - ie unusable ever again and you need to get a new one.[1]
 
...but, no, I think it should only refer to h/w.

[1] I put several blank lines between 'one.' and '...but' and I'm posting as 'plain old text', but this stupid system seems to join the two lines anyway. Seriously sucky behaviour for a 'plain old text' mode, if you ask me (which you aren't, but anyway). I ended up adding a couple of 'br' tags.

Re:Macs

[cooley]

1) Power off the computer
2) perform paper-clip origami
3) stick it in the hole to pop the CD tray open

Back in the day when I was doing desktop support, I just kept a bent paper clip in my toolbox.

Re:Macs

[dwater]

Your problem is that you're not thinking different enough.

Re:Macs

[Kingrames]

It's probably being used casually, as in "it would be cheaper and easier to purchase a new computer than to try and get this p.o.s. working again."

Perhaps the person who originally referred to it as a brick pays their friendly local teenage geek several hundred dollars to fix things. Perhaps they need the bootcamp thing to make it work. who knows?

As for me, I always use the term "boat anchor." It's a bit more appropriate in the case of a PC tower/monitor.

Re:Macs

[imamac]

Agreed. It is NOT routine. My MacBook failed to boot after doing this update and I had to do and archive and install to get it usable again. I haven't had to do something like that since Mac OS 9. While I didn't regularly use boot camp, I did enough to feel the loss. I'll be upgrading to 10.5 soon enough, but it is annoying. It also looks somewhat underhanded.,,you just have to wonder if it really was an accident.

Re:Macs

[vux984]

Some macs do not have the 'paperclip' hole in the case. The physical drive still had it, but you had to dismantle and open up the case to reach it... this wasn't particularly trivial on some macs.

Re:Macs

[catwh0re]

While not to distract from the importance of service packs working on expired betas that are probably being artificially maintained while yielding unpredictable results.

My eyes were first attracted to the word "bricked" only to realise that it was again not "bricked" but just someone aiming high with a sensationalist headline.

I feel that bricked = no longer functional with no redemption at all.. I.e your hardware might as well be a brick. The ability to extract your data and at worst having to then format the system and reinstall the OS is rather far from "bricking" and it's a pretty standard procedure in the event of a virus or OS-level corruption.

I have included a handy guide of examples of ways to brick your computer.

- Bring your computer swimming.

- Puncture your laptop battery and watch the fireworks, wait until computer is smoldering mess before extinguishing.

- Operate your machine in the near vicinity of high voltage Tesla coil.

- Drop your computer off some ridiculous glass walkway in the middle of the desert.

Re:Macs

[cooley]

Good rememberin' there buddy, I'd forgotten about the 1337 case mods the designers felt the need to give to everyone at some point, there.

Now that you mention it, the blue & white G3 might have been the first time I remember having to pry open the purty drive hider in order to get at the actual drive. Of course, then the Wintel boxes followed suit (I'm lookin' at YOU, Compaq)....

Re:Macs

[Lehk228]

remember the "drag the hard drive to the trash to eject it" bug? i can't remember which version of mac OS it was, something pre OS9 I think.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to criticize another's usage of language, perhaps you should first make sure your usage is without fault, viz. your use of the word "moreso" and your use of "a long" to mean "along". C'mon, it's not that difficult...

Re:Macs

[porkus]

You obviously haven't tried to print to a Windows-shared printer with options like Landscape or n-up printing. Or you haven't tried to add a printer shared from an older Mac, since they turned off CUPS browsing by default in Leopard for no apparently good reason. You may also not have noticed how flaky connecting to SMB shared drives can be. Leopard most certainly does not _just work_ for everyone. I'm back on Tiger and at this point looks like I'll be staying until 10.5.2 at the earliest.

Re:Macs

[deniable]

It's just lazy journalists. They meant break/broke and the spell-checker gave them brick.

Re:Macs

[cheater512]

I use Gentoo and the last time I reinstalled it was when I got a new computer maybe 4 years ago.
Still works flawless. Windows would be begging to be reinstalled by now.

I think the GP was trying to make a joke about the 24 hours plus install times for Gentoo. :)
Sure it takes long but once its done its absolutely fantastic.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

"Can you imagine if ..."

no need.

both microsoft and apple do this at almost every opportunity.

having their software on a computer is a serious liability.

Re:Macs

[O_4]

A hacked boot loader? If you are already using boot camp, you can continue to do so for as long as you desire. No hacks are required.

The only thing which 'expires' is the OS X GUI tool which helps you create a Windows partition or burn a Windows-on-a-Mac driver CD.

Re:Macs

[mcrbids]

Can you imagine if a Windows update made your computer unable to boot if you had it set up to dual-boot into Linux? Why do people rush to the defense of Apple when they completely f-BEEP-k up and make a mockery of their cheesy "it just works" phrase?

I'm with you on this one. (as I type away on my Mac-mini) I would be UTTERLY LIVID if a Windows update horked my grub bootloader, Apple deserves no less rage for this shenanigan. Apple, are you listening?

I have a problem with them dictating what I can and can't do with their stuff, especially when they'd previously indicated that I can do this. And no, I don't have boot camp. I don't care about boot camp. I have computers running Linux, Windows, and MacOS all throughout my house. (I'm a CTO / Software engineer, I have about a dozen computers in my house right now)

When you buy a product, ANY product, there's an implied agreement. I don't expect to run OSX on any old computer - it has to be an Apple; but in exchange for this limitation I expect drivers and such to be more or less a non-issue, which it pretty much always has been. (The latest OSX doesn't work on my ancient cherry 400 Mhz PPC iMac anymore... ugh) OSX is the most closed OS around - it's locked to specific hardware, there are no drivers that I can download anywhere, and it works how it works or I load in binary hacks that jeopordize the stability of the system.

Windows, on the other hand, is more open. In exchange for a bit of roughness around drivers and such, I get the opportunity to run it on anything X86. (Even newer Macs!) I don't get to modify the OS per se, but there are plenty of ports for drivers, software, etc. that extend, tweak, and refine the operations of the OS.

Linux is the most open. Everything is available to me, including sources. But I'm in the wild-wild west if I should do *anything* unusual. I can literally create my own Operating System from the ground up, line-by-line if I desire, with Linux. This degree of openness is really more than I can handle, so I make a subsequent deal with a distributor (in my case, Red Hat) to box-up the Operating System and provide a consistent experience so that I can rely on various things to be present, including drivers and such.

Counter-intuitively, the support structure for Linux is most like Macintosh - I have to make sure I have supported hardware, and if a particular piece of hardware hasn't been blessed by your particular distro, you have to resort to some weird hacks and custom-compiled software, but within that, management is a dream, and usually "just works".

For example, to load a CentOS/RedHat system from install to completely updated requires just a load, a single up2date (or yum -y update) command, and a single reboot. Raw hardware to fully updated in under an hour. MacOS is very similar. Windows takes 2 days of updates, driver downloads, and reboots. I can only use CentOS/Ubuntu with hardware on their HCL, unless I want to pull up the sleeves and spend an afternoon dickering. These qualities are much like MacOS.

From a management perspective, RedHat/Ubuntu == Apple.

Re:Macs

[satoshi1]

Web2.0

Re:Macs

[RubberDogBone]

Agreed. I use XP under Parallels so Bootcamp is a non-issue.

But SMB in Leopard was a disaster for me and sent me running back to Tiger, where stuff just, you know, worked.

I'll stay in Tiger until the Leopard public beta finishes.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding was that 'to brick a device' was to make it unusable ever again creating a possibly expensive paperweight.

Ah, that's why SGI Origin systems are built out of "bricks" right from the start... What's the description for that class of machines, superpaperweights?

[Okay okay in fairness the same arch different proc Altix systems rock in HPC but let's not let that get in the way.]

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

Or u can run Windows software through MS terminal servers or ThinServer

http://www.aikotech.com/thinserver.htm

Re:Macs

[Starayo]

"Unlike windows", you say.

I haven't had to reinstall windows for all the years XP has been out (and it's continued to run perfectly, almost but not quite as fast as my old ubuntu installation, but that's to be expected) unless I replace the hard drive and want to simply be off with all the crap I seem to accumulate.

Re:Macs

[cp.tar]

I think the GP was trying to make a joke about the 24 hours plus install times for Gentoo. :)
Sure it takes long but once its done its absolutely fantastic.

And Gentoo is the OS that practically needs no re-installing: they do have profile versions, but nothing like distro-upgrade.

New stuff just... emerges.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as i know, Apple computers use EFI, and Boot Camps purpose other than being a nondestructive partitioning program, is to create a means for Windows to even boot in EFI.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

If M$ did this there would be more than 262 comments. Come on fanboys scream .... muhahahahahahhaha

Re:Macs

[rbanffy]

As someone pointed out, but with a slightly different exercise:

1) power up
2) wait for chime
3) press and hold "E"

Done it hundreds of times (I have a collection of interesting old computers with many Macs among them)

Re:Macs

[ttldkns]

SMB connections are better than ever for me in leopard. Although if you are still using go>connect to server I found i got increased reliability by using CIFS:// as opposed to SMB://. SMB is depreciated but newer SMB servers like winXP and samba still maintain it for backwards compatibility. CIFS is the updated protocol and i thoroughly recommend you try it :)

I first found out about the difference when i only compiled CIFS support into my (linux) kernel by accident and all my SMB connection problems on linux went away too.

Anyway back to the issue in the story my girlfriend's macbook pro had bootcamp installed and she got 10.4.11 weeks ago with no trouble

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

It's probably being used casually, as in "it would be cheaper and easier to purchase a new computer than to try and get this p.o.s. working again." OK, grossly imprecise language. Let me try.

Original: "My computer exploded, killing me and my family."

Translation: "With the amount of time it took to install Vista and find a set of working, stable drivers, the household would have been better off facing a Nazi firing squad."

No, wait, still OTT...

Translation: "It took so long to re-install Vista properly that my wife conceived another child before first reboot and gave birth just as I was installing the final Windows Update patches."

No, wait, Slashdotter with a wife, lacking credibility... OK, one more try:

Translation: "You'll need to put aside a few hours to install Vista and find a working set of drivers. An evening or two's frustrating work, perhaps, but that's it."

Wow, it is possible to be expressive and accurate.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

From a management perspective, RedHat/Ubuntu == Apple.

For sufficiently small values of Apple.

-Kelly

Re:Macs

[jsoderba]

Same thing happens if you run Debian sid. Something sid will hurt you, but it's only because he loves you, baby.

Re:Macs

[Daengbo]

"it would be cheaper and easier to purchase a new computer..." We're talking about Macs here. Cheap is not an option.

Re:Macs

[jsoderba]

Memo: The "blogosphere" is full of catchphrase-spouting fools.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Freak]

Not only that, but some of the notebook slot-load drives have no physical eject manual override AT ALL. You would have to not only dismantle the computer case, but the optical drive, as well.

Re:Macs

[MikePikeFL]

Haha, I first read that as "Maxtor" and thought "yep, that sounds about right."

Then I read the translation.

Re:Macs

[LKM]

It shouldn't be routine, but then, it's not too hard to do on Macs. You can do an archive and install, which: Put in the DVD, select the drive, select "archive and install", wait an hour or so, and your Mac is working again, with a clean version of OS X and all of your user data kept intact.

Re:Macs

[DrXym]

That used to be the case. These days Apple seem to be coasting on a reputation which they no longer hold. Virtually every single Apple device seems to be accompanied by major and sometimes serious faults - yellowing cases, expanding batteries, fire hazard cables, scratchable screens, faulty earjacks.

Even the software isn't up to snuff any more. I use iTunes on Vista and the thing still doesn't work properly after having something like 10 updates since Vista appeared. It still shows black screens, still chokes on MP4 video and still crashes randomly. Piece of crap that it is.

Re:Macs

[renegadesx]

You've obviously never worked neither with Gentoo, uh. Real geeks use Gentoo

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

In Soviet Russia, n00b5 pwn YOU!

Re:Macs

[Splab]

About a year ago I was working as a sysadmin, an iMac came in and was tagged for disposal, but to ensure no data could be extracted we needed the HDD. Those things are build like Fort Knox, in the end I dismantled it using a hammer, bit hard to get it back together again I guess, but luckily not an issue there.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

4) Profit

Re:Macs

[Bearhouse]

"Windows takes 2 days of updates, driver downloads, and reboots..."

Whaaat! C'mon, if you're a CTO / Software engineer you must know about sliptreamed install CD/DVDs and unatended installs...really cuts down on the pain. Plenty of tools available to roll your own, or just download 1 from the net. Check it first for 'extras' though ;-)

At end, insert your valid serials for the software, (XP, Office, whatever) and you're good to go.

Agree about the drivers, though. Whenever I install a new peripheral(s), I just throw away the install CD that came with it/them, and download the latest. Normally avoids all sorts of pain, but takes a while...

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boot_Camp_(software)

It's an Apple product you idiot.

Re:Macs

[CmdrPorno]

SMB and CUPS are still flaky for me in Tiger. I've got three Windows machines in the office, on which I can see the printers, but can't print. Also, I can't connect to the "My Documents" share on more than one machine at a time (Windows allows you to do this with other Windows machines).

Re:Macs

[arminw]

......I haven't had to reinstall windows for all the years XP has been out......

Actually I haven't either on MY computer. However, you and I and the others here on /. would not be on here if we did not at least somewhat LIKE computers and technology and know more about it than the average grandpa and uncle.

Those are the ones who click OK and thereby install all sorts of wonderful crap on their Windows machines. They are the ones who pull the power plug when the system fails to respond, because it is processing spam or looking for that server to which to send that personal information it has gathered.

I have dealt with many such machines which had their registries hosed to the point where the computer became a doorstop. Sometimes I did manage to use regedit and fix it, but most of the time it's a re-install.

Macs do glitch also, such as when the user willy nilly unplugs it. Often though, the repair utility Apple includes with each system will make the system operable again. I have a portable HD which will boot all Intel Macs and another one for all the older PPC versions. These disks contain a number of diagnostic and repair tools.

When I get called to resurrect an un-bootable Mac, those usually enable a quick fix. Too bad that there is no way to make a universal boot disk for all Windows machines. Hard drives are pretty cheap these days.

Re:Macs

[tehcyder]

If you can get it to work again via routine tasks (like reinstalling the OS on HDD) it is technically not a brick. A "bricked" Mac would almost always require you to send in the machine to the manufacturer to unbrick.

Oh, well that's OK then.

Re:Macs

[TheWizardTim]

From the original Mac to today, reboot the computer and hold down the mouse button. It will eject everything that can be ejected, CDs, DVDs and if you still have them, floppy disks, before the computer tries to read them.

Re:Macs

[SpacePunk]

"I have a problem with them dictating what I can and can't do with their stuff, especially when they'd previously indicated that I can do this. And no, I don't have boot camp. I don't care about boot camp. I have computers running Linux, Windows, and MacOS all throughout my house. (I'm a CTO / Software engineer, I have about a dozen computers in my house right now)"

After you purchase the product, that particular, invidual product is no longer "their stuff".

Re:Macs

[Rune69]

Bah!

Re:Macs

[ikioi]

If you hold down the mouse button during boot up, the firmware ejects optical disks.

Re:Macs

[pak9rabid]

shhhh! don't tell them that, I was hoping to pick up some free Macs after a night of dumpster diving...

Re:Macs

[kelnos]

I have a problem with them dictating what I can and can't do with [my] stuff There, fixed it for you.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

Wasn't a bug, that was how it was designed since day one.

Re:Macs

[MBGMorden]

"Bricked": it's the new "terrorist"!

Don't you love sensationalism?

Re:Macs

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

I'm with you on this one. (as I type away on my Mac-mini) I would be UTTERLY LIVID if a Windows update horked my grub bootloader, Apple deserves no less rage for this shenanigan.

What if when you downloaded Grub, you downloaded a .8 beta release that made it clear that it was both unsupported and would expire in a few months, but you kept using the beta version of Grub anyway and then it conflicted with a Linux update, because it had not been tested, because it was no longer supported now that the final version was out. The answer is, upgrade to the real release version once the beta test is over, or don't complain about it.

When you buy a product, ANY product, there's an implied agreement.

Yeah, and when you sign up for a beta test program there is more than an implied agreement, there is a specifically spelled out, "use at your own risk" "don't use after the beta program" and "backup your data" warning. If you ignore it, you deserve what you get.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

Because prior to the release of Leopard, Boot Camp was in beta. Hence, it is a beta boot loader.

Re:Macs

[heson]

In next weeks slashdot:
"Negligence to recharge may brick your mobile phone." (until you recharge it again)
"Fiddling with grub might brick any linux pc" and
"Resurrecting bricked linux in one easy step"

Re:Macs

[holophrastic]

Well, what do you know, Mac's suck. It was easy to have a solid product when it was a small product. Now that they've grown into the world of real computing that caters to more than a single illiterate user, look at all of the problems every week.

And what do you mean that boot camp isn't available anymore after the update? You can't just remove a feature that business users are depending on!

I'm enjoying watching Apple fall into a hole that Microsoft has been climbing out of for well over a decade. Maybe Apple can use the same footholds to catch up -- I hope they were watching.

Linux will go through the very same thing before any distro can be used as a consumer operating system.

There's a big difference between a product, and a product that can be used. In this case, we're talking about an OS that runs on known certified hardware, with known usually-certified software, for one user, doing one thing, usually illiterately, with few malicious attackers.

To grow into an OS like Windows that handles random carp hardware, random carp software, multiple users per machine, on completely insecure networks of glue and shoe-laces, with an endless supply of malicious attackers, and non-expert users that push every button.

Good luck to Apple. And then good luck to yoru favourite Linux distro. I'd love to have the market and the industry that such things would bring. Alas, it won't happen any time soon.

Re:Macs

[Reaperducer]

SMB in Leopard was a disaster for me and sent me running back to Tiger, where stuff just, you know, worked.

I find that interesting. I've had exactly the opposite experience. I had occasional SMB problems in Tiger, but in Leopard networking is a comparative dream. I did the erase-and-install route, though. Maybe that had something to do with it.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

No you didn't miss a memo. Mac users tend to make a point of how the computer is so easy, they don't have to know how to use it. One component of this is misusing terminology. So, you end up with all these Mac-related stories that completely reuse the term "bricked".

Re:Macs

[Reverend528]

Back in the day when I was doing desktop support, I just kept a bent paper clip in my toolbox.

Poor clippy :-(

Re:Macs

[renegadesx]

Did I say Gentoo? Shit!

My bad, I meant to say slackware Fixed: "Reel geeks use Slackware"

Re:Macs

[RockDoctor]

"They just _work_."

Like fuck they do.
I've been struggling to get my head round one of the damned things for about 2 months now and I'm really, really glad that the colleague who I brought the damned thing off has offered to buy it back if I'm still unhappy in a couple of weeks.
I have to say that having just re-enabled the wireless adapter, at least that bit of it has worked. Of course, the impossibility of finding a Mac-compatible webcam last night was just another typically Mac pain in the arse.
Nope, I've given the platform a more than fair crack of the whip, and I just don't have the time to waste on learning all it's ins and outs (along with several variants of Unix, Symbian's ER05 (Psion) system, and up to 4 major versions of Windows in any one day).

Re:Macs

[Yethi]

As such, one way I got around the problem was to downgrade to ComboUpdate 10.4.10 and install the rEFIt bootloader. It makes your Mac totally legit and it even allows you to, easily, triple boot you box with Mac, Winblows and Linux side by side. See rEFIT at http://refit.sourceforge.net/ for details.

Re:Macs

[Anonymous Coward]

have you delt with a mactard?? a problem always requires them to send it back to the shop.....

ummm so don't install it.

[Anonymous Coward]

If your hardware is to old to update, don't bother.

Re:ummm so don't install it.

[lexarius]

Umm, any Mac that has Boot Camp on it is an Intel Mac, and is therefore fairly new.

Apple

[proudfoot]

This seems like a rather glaring oversight. The only reason that something available previously being available only for newer versions of a product is to force someone to upgrade.

Re:Apple

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

This seems like a rather glaring oversight. The only reason that something available previously being available only for newer versions of a product is to force someone to upgrade.

Previously only a beta version was available. When they released the final version it was included with 10.5. It would be nice if they kept the beta that worked on 10.4 available, but it is beta software and it is understandable if they don't want to deal with the support headaches. If they were shipping a real version for 10.4, then they'd have to test every new patch to OS X and see if it worked with bootcamp (which admittedly would have been nice).

Re:Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe people in Cupertino just don't happen to run Microsoft Windows all day.

Re:Apple

[Anonymous Coward]

Previously only a beta version was available..[etc]

You, and other posters like you defending Apple on this, really make me think that this was no mistake. Are sales of Leopard less than expected? Is it not offering enough to upgrade, a bit like Vista? Apple is really looking like a selfish two-year-old with its passive aggressive approach to marketing. At least Microsoft extended the life of XP since it knows where its bottom line comes from - customer loyalty.

Re:Apple

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

At least Microsoft extended the life of XP since it knows where its bottom line comes from - customer loyalty.

What the hell are you taking about? Apple has not EOLed 10.4 or even 10.3 yet. This is about set of patches for 10.4 for the love of Kali! This is about Apple no longer supporting a beta version of a payware product, now that the final version is out.

If you want bootcamp, buy it or use one of the free alternatives. If you don't want it, don't buy it. Just don't complain when you're using an unsupported beta version you downloaded as part of a beta test and something breaks because Apple isn't supporting it.

Do any of the 3rd party disk tools fix this with.

[Joe The Dragon]

Do any of the 3rd party disk tools fix this without havering to reload the os.

Yeah

[DurendalMac]

We have four or five people in a thread and it's news? Please. In addition, this is NOT A BRICKING. Bricking means it's completely inoperable. If you can reinstall, it's not bricked. Period. I also find it hard to believe that you can't archive & install if something goes wrong, or at least do the plain old install.

Re:Yeah

[TeraCo]

Sir, you have Mac in your username. Your credibility was shot the moment you walked into the thread. A service pack rendering a PC non-operation is a big deal regardless of how you try to portray it.

Re:Yeah

[webmaster404]

Sure its not "bricking" but its a Mac equivalent to a Blue Screen of Death, which although Windows is re-installable because your BIOS isn't broken it sure is a pain to do so. Computers with working hardware and a BIOS can never be truly "bricked" but they can come very close to being as useful as one.

Re:Yeah

[DurendalMac]

Oh, yeah, there's an intelligent comment. "You're name has Mac in it, so you can't comment on this!" And you're an asshole, so you shouldn't be commenting either. Isn't it fun to throw these stupid statements around?

And it's not non-operational because you can reinstall and still continue to use it, albeit with some hassle. That is not bricked. What part of that is so difficult to grasp?

Re:Yeah

[DurendalMac]

Oh, I'm not saying it isn't a pain in the ass, but bricking is far from accurate. It's like someone just copied a Digg headline to Slashdot.

Re:Yeah

[gordgekko]

Please sir, can I punch the straw man too? Who said anything about bricking. Right, you.

Re:Yeah

[HansKloss]

It is bricked.
After reading Apple recommendation to reset Power Management system, take battery out-press power button for 5 seconds, got even worse.
Can't use DVD drive anymore, won't boot into single mode or safe mode and verbose get stuck on errno 88.

Should I buy and keep a second Mac to be able use Firewire mode in case like this?

Re:Yeah

[Propaganda13]

He is correct about it not being bricking though. As far as warnings go, it wouldn't have done any good. All updates would come with a warning that your data should be backed up and while the update was tested, it still could have unforeseen consequences. It would be like EULAs, just click because you have to. The situation though does point out that updating just because isn't always a good idea.

Re:Yeah

[DurendalMac]

Read the headline, dumbass! It's right there! Are you selectively illiterate or something?

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Describing a (temporarily) non-booting machine as "bricked" is like calling an unconscious person "dead".

I'm assuming that you are just "unconscious" from the neck up.

Re:Yeah

[DurendalMac]

This is a system update and does not write to the motherboard firmware or the PMU. Your Mac already had issues if you're seeing these kinds of problems. I've seen some things that would look like an OS update glitch until you test the hardware and find that the motherboard is messed up. An OS update doesn't do that.

Re:Yeah

[noidentity]

The rate at which words are misused to dramatize things seems to be increasing. The term "bricking" isn't that old, and it's already being used anytime something causes any problems someone doesn't like, rather than only when it makes the device as useless as a brick. Repeat after me: if you can get the device working again without having to solder a JTAG debug device or similar, it's NOT FUCKING BRICKED. It's like making everything bold and thus losing the emphasis bold used to have; what the hell is the point?

Re:Yeah

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Errm, a minor update causes OS X running in a common configuration to not boot. Sounds like news for nerds to me!

The article also suggests that Apple new about the issue prior to release, a very serious charge if true.

Watch the quality of Desktop version of OS X slip as Jobs puts all the good engineers onto the iPhone/iPod. After all, as Jobs himself said: "...unning Apple, I would milk the Macintosh for all it's worth -- and get busy on the next great thing. The PC wars are over. Done. Microsoft won a long time ago."

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

An operational computer requires an operational operating system, or it's just hardware. The user must format and reinstall their operating system to return the machine to operational, potentially losing data in process unless they can remotely connect to the hard drive to get the data off first. But hey, the machine is just fine!

Re:Yeah

[EvanED]

Sure its not "bricking" but its a Mac equivalent to a Blue Screen of Death

Um, no, it's not. A BSOD is usually a temporary condition, and rebooting "solves" it. Sure it's an indication of a bug, but if that bug only causes a fault every 1000 hours of operation, that's not too horrible. Certainly well below the "you need to reinstall" level.

Sure, there are things that will prevent you from booting again that also cause BSODs, but these are a small part of all BSODs.

Re:Yeah

[DurendalMac]

I'd need to see someone other than a Mac Genius (who doesn't really know much from the higher-ups who would actually know if this was a known issue) saying that this was a known issue before I'd buy that. A bunch of things can screw up your OS, but why do they hit the news page, hmm? We have maybe half a dozen scattered reports. That doesn't add up to much at all. And your quote from Jobs is from a long, long time ago. Considering how Mac sales are up, I think that his view has probably changed significantly.

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but Macs "Just Work"(tm). You can't expect a non-savvy Mac user like kdawson to know the difference between a fixable problem and a bricking.

Re:Yeah

[webmaster404]

For me 75% of all BSOD were unbootable systems, the rest were wi-fi and other-type cards not being pressed in all the way

Re:Yeah

[DurendalMac]

I never said it wasn't a pain or that there couldn't be data loss. I said the term "brick" was used improperly because bricking implies that it's completely ruined. But hey, try to argue nonexistent semantics, AC.

Re:Yeah

[DurendalMac]

In addition to my original post, I'd also like to add that I work in a Mac shop. I've seen some Leopard bugs that made me shake my head in disgust, but I have yet to see any issues with 10.4.11, this one included, and I've had plenty of Macs with 10.4.x come across the bench that were upgraded to 10.4.11 with no issues at all. I seriously doubt this is widespread at all.

Re:Yeah

[nurb432]

I have to agree, its damned frustrating and inconvenient, but its not a *brick*.

Re:Yeah

[dotgain]

Don't mind him. Like a thousand other slashdotters, he learned what a Strawman was last week, and he's just trying to throw it round a bit.

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

a "non-savvy Mac user" probably wouldn't be running a beta version of a tool to partition the hard drive in order to run Windows.

anyone who can follow the steps required to use Boot Camp and figure out how to reinstall the system using "archive and install," which wouldn't change the disk partition scheme or affect the Windows installation.

Advice received in a retail store from a clerk is worth what you pay for it. It's unfortunate that Apple rolled out an update with problems, but this isn't exactly a major crisis affecting lots of people. No doubt Mary Jo Foley will add this to her list of why Leopard users will suddenly want to buy a PC and run Vista, but outside of CNET's ZDnet bloggers, there's not much of a story.

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Please. In addition, this is NOT A BRICKING.

This is a common phenomenon. Apple users get hold of a term, namely "it got bricked". Apple fanatics, being parrots, go around repeating the term, especially if it sounds cool, since Apple fanatics like things that appear cool even if they're stupid. Then, the term gets used in the wrong context all over.

Re:Yeah

[timeOday]

Is it true that OSX 10.4 is incompatible with bootcamp? I had considered getting a PowerBook instead of a Dell to experiment with OSX while retaining compatibility with Windows, but decided against it because I was afraid bootcamp wasn't offically supported and could go away. Now it sounds like that has happened?

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

yea, like someone here is the final word on definitions.

plenty of linksys' are BRICKED

and then they are unbricked.

it's a relative term. when an electronic device becomes inoperable it can be called "bricked"

if it was software brickage, then it can be undone, even if you have to send it off to get the eprom or whatever replaced.

brickage due to bad soldering skills might be undoable, or perhaps not.

when anyone "bricks" a device, many times, they might say "I've bricked it"...but just as often following such an utterance, they really don't know if it's permanent or not.

so do you have a dictionary anywhere, anyplace that describes all the possibilities that the term is used, accounting for all the variations and natural tendency for language to be adapted?

no you don't.

so stfu.

Re:Yeah

[DurendalMac]

Get ahold of Boot Camp and manually turn the clock back about six months. Boot Camp will then work. Partition your drive with it and away you go. Or you could just reinstall OS X, partition the drive before doing so, then boot from the Windows CD and format the remaining partition to NTFS/FAT32. The whole "OMG NO MORE BOOTCAMP!" hype is way overblown. In any case, all new Mac laptops now come with 10.5, so no need to worry anyway.

Re:Yeah

[gordgekko]

No, I make sweet, sweet love to it.

Re:Yeah

[taskiss]

Not when I have an identical system, with Boot Camp installed, and I don't have a problem.

    Model Name: MacBook Pro
    Model Identifier: MacBookPro3,1
    Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
    Processor Speed: 2.4 GHz
    Number Of Processors: 1
    Total Number Of Cores: 2
    L2 Cache (per processor): 4 MB
    Memory: 2 GB
    Bus Speed: 800 MHz
    Boot ROM Version: MBP31.0070.B02
    SMC Version: 1.18f2

ST9160823AS:

    Capacity: 149.05 GB
    Model: ST9160823AS
    Revision: 3.DAE
    Serial Number: 5NK01BHX
    Native Command Queuing: Yes
    Queue Depth: 32
    Removable Media: No
    Detachable Drive: No
    BSD Name: disk0
    OS9 Drivers: No
    S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified
    Volumes:
Mac:
    Capacity: 117 GB
    Available: 31.98 GB
    Writable: Yes
    File System: Journaled HFS+
    BSD Name: disk0s2
    Mount Point: /
WINDOWS:
    Capacity: 31.73 GB
    Available: 12.21 GB
    Writable: Yes
    File System: MS-DOS FAT32
    BSD Name: disk0s3
    Mount Point: /Volumes/WINDOWS

Re:Yeah

[arminw]

....service pack rendering a PC non-operation is a big deal ......

Indeed it would be a big deal if this were a pure Mac with no Windows within 10,000 miles. However it applies only to mongrel mutt Macs that have been contaminated by Windows. That's what you get for questioning the credibility of someone here, just because they have "mac" in their login name.

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

An unconcious person is clearly not dead. Totally wrong. He is bricked.

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Should I buy and keep a second Mac to be able use Firewire mode in case like this?

Yes, please buy another mac.

--
Steve Jobs

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

> Describing a (temporarily) non-booting machine as "bricked" is like calling an unconscious person "dead".

I'm sorry, but I still don't understand. Could you make that into a car analogy..? :)

Re:Yeah

[king-manic]

Sure its not "bricking" but its a Mac equivalent to a Blue Screen of Death, which although Windows is re-installable because your BIOS isn't broken it sure is a pain to do so. Computers with working hardware and a BIOS can never be truly "bricked" but they can come very close to being as useful as one. Incidentally since XP came around the only time I get BSODs are

  1- when I dick around with drivers to get old hardware to work
  2- Hardware failure (mostly bad ram)
  3- when I dick around with a core Windows .ini

Other then that I haven't got a BSOD.

Re:Yeah

[dwater]

Except that, IINM, pedantically, 'mac' refers to an operating system, not h/w. Not that using the term 'brick' for s/w is any more valid, but still.

Re:Yeah

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

And your quote from Jobs is from a long, long time ago.

But, Jobs has come back to Apple & done precisely what he'd said he'd do - move on to the next big thing. He's even dropped "Computers" from the name of the company.

Making quite a success of it too, but OS X is suffering for it.

Re:Yeah

[adamstew]

Mac refers to the Hardware. OSX is the operating system that runs on Macs...hence it's name: "Operating System 10"

Re:Yeah

[dwater]

Oh, you mean like the 'Linux operating system' etc etc.

In any case, I could have sworn it was the other way around, but I can't find any evidence for it, so I'll just shut up :)

Re:Yeah

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really involved nor interested in this discussion. Just a quick question:

Do you realize you're acting like a douche on the internet? Got anything better to do?

Re:Yeah

[TeraCo]

Sure, I'll agree to that. Bricked is a term I tend to only use as I swing a sock with a half brick in it at rabid mac fanboys as they desperately try to claw me into the abyss.

I'll generally go with 'hosed' or 'fucked' when referring to computers which no longer boot.

Re:Yeah

[mrbluze]

And it's not non-operational because you can reinstall and still continue to use it, albeit with some hassle. That is not bricked. What part of that is so difficult to grasp?

It will continue to be an unsatisfactory situation until someone comes up with a HOWTO of how to install Ubuntu on it the place of OS X. And I do believe that it is not difficult to do anymore.

Consumers are not totally stupid and when their computer gets hosed by the guy they bought it from, they instantly smell a rat.

Re:Yeah

[falcon5768]

its hardly a big deal when you put it in perspective of EVERY service pack from EVERY OS manufacturer has the remote possibility of making the computer non-operational due to various reasons too numerous to list.

Considering this has been out for over a week and I am JUST hearing about this now, and I have whole labs who use 10.4.11 right now, on various machines from 2nd generation iMacs to brand new Intel iMacs, I think the percentage effected by this issue is extremely low.

Re:Yeah

[Achromatic1978]

I'd need to see ... the higher-ups who would actually know if this was a known issue

Riiiiight. Because we all know that never in Apple's history have they stonewalled, outright denied, declined warranty support in regards to issues that were clearly there, on a mass scale (note: I am not saying this issue is so), often until public pressure got sufficiently great.

"The higher ups. They know. They shall speak. Forsooth, they have not, ergo, there be no problem."

Ha. Ha. Ha.

Re:Yeah

[mstone]

Sure: It's like saying a car that's out of gas is 'totaled'.

Re:Yeah

[Macthorpe]

I don't know... if I hurl a brick at someone they often end up unconscious...

You know, theoretically. I don't actually go around throwing bricks at people! That would be crazy!

*coughs a little*
 
...

*runs away*

Re:Yeah

[ByOhTek]

The original BSOD if I remember, was when the crash caused an unbootable system. If the system was still bootable, it was just a Blue Screen. These days the OD migrated to any crash showing a blue screen.

Re:Yeah

[Weedlekin]

"But, Jobs has come back to Apple & done precisely what he'd said he'd do - move on to the next big thing. He's even dropped "Computers" from the name of the company."

Jobs removed "Computer" from the name after they won a case against Apple Corp. Prior to that, they had an arrangement with Apple Corp to (a) stay out of the music business, and (b) re-name the company to Apple Computer to avoid confusion with Apple Corp (there were probably other conditions as well, but I can't be bothered to check). Apple Computer was originally simply called "Apple", so this is actually a case of them restoring the name that the company had before the older Apple vs. Apple saga forced them to change it.

Oh that's nice.

[onefriedrice]

> MacNN has a note up that if you fall victim to this "known issue" and need to reformat the disk,
> you can't reinstall Boot Camp because it is no longer available to OS X 10.4 Tiger users.

That's a nice way to treat your beta testers. After the beta period, simply render the machine unbootable making them reformat so there's no way for them to continue using the software they've been testing for you for the past year. That's really good, well done.

If it was anyone but Apple....

Re:Oh that's nice.

[DurendalMac]

Yeah, because I'm SURE it was deliberate. *rolleyes*

Re:Oh that's nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

The Good Steve giveth, and the Good Steve taketh away.

Amen.

Re:Oh that's nice.

[Internet Ronin]

I'm sure this is definitely mod-bait, but Apple's Boot Camp beta has expired.

If you have Boot Camp installed now, and it's not on your new Leopard operating system, you're running pirated software; you are in violation of the EULA; do not pass "Go;" do not collect $200.

I realize the issue is that people have beef with the fact that they've been getting Boot Camp for free, and now Apple, bastards that they are, have the gall to use the finished product as a means to make money. They have always been open and upfront with the fact that Boot Camp Beta was a limited license, set to expire, and that the new version would be a part of Leopard, a pay-for-upgrade product.

Where's the beef?

If you've got a pirated version of Photoshop, you install an Adobe-branded update that notices your copy is in violation of their EULA, and they cripple it, do you really think you've got any sort of recourse? It's like filing a police report that someone has stolen your marijuana (apologies to the cool countries that legalized it, maybe the bug up our ass will die one day).

Apple's position, legitimized by the American legal system (and any legal system that recognizes EULAs for that matter), is that they released a software update that wouldn't cripple anyone that was in compliance with the law and the EULA. Only those in violation are hosed.

Shady business tactic? Maybe.
Legally justified? Absolutely, 100%, no question, without a doubt.

Re:Oh that's nice.

[ScrewMaster]

The Good Steve giveth, and the Good Steve taketh away.

You put an extra 'o' in God.

Re:Oh that's nice.

[mcpkaaos]

...and you misspelled 'Complex', too.

Re:Oh that's nice.

[onefriedrice]

> Shady business tactic? Maybe.

Which is exactly the point. Nobody is arguing whether this is legal or not; the point (which you have just proven) is if it were anyone but Apple they would be severely scorned at. Seeing as how it is Apple, they are somehow excused. The moderation of my original post is further proof. Good, you found the beef all on your own.

PS- I shouldn't have to say this because it shouldn't matter, but I've been a user of Apple products since the Quadra 650 which had the Motorola chips. I'm still a Mac user, and one of the few who seems to still be able to remain rational when Apple gets in the news in a more negative light. It isn't treason to find some faults with Apple and still love using their products. I know, what a shocking revelation this is! Enjoy it.

Re:Oh that's nice.

[Anonymous Coward]

Legally justified? Absolutely, 100%, no question, without a doubt.

Not in the UK. Several years ago the first prosecution under the Computer Misuse Act was of an independent contractor who put a timebomb in some software he developed for a client. After the client refused to pay him the software they had commissioned stopped working. Note that it didn't do any damage; it merely refused to run.

The court agreed that the contractor's program constituted unauthorized misuse of a computer and he got a criminal conviction.

Re:Oh that's nice.

[Internet Ronin]

Apple has no reason to support software that is used in violation of their EULA.

I'm not sure how I proved that anyone else would be severely scorned for this. Adobe and MS do this all the time, with little to scorn. People that are running their software illegally have very little room to complain when further updates break it. Using a Sufers Serialz # to activate a copy of Photoshop or Office that, when updated disables the account shouldn't give anyone grounds for griping to MS or Adobe. If they had purchased the legal version of it, they wouldn't have had the problem.

Apple never hid the fact that Boot Camp was a BETA that expired at a specific time. There should have been ZERO copies of Tiger (10.4) with Boot Camp on them at the time 10.4.11 was released. The license for that software has expired, and a new license can only be acquired via upgrading to Leopard. It's not a bait-and-switch because they didn't bait anybody. Should Apple spend their engineering time beta-testing for illegal configurations? If you're running OS X on an unlicensed (non-Mac) Intel-based PC, should Apple be forced to test for problems that arise there? NO! Because there shouldn't be any copies of OS X on a non-Mac PC.

And I feel for you getting modded down, you'll notice I got the "Troll" hit myself, so that proves little.

I still see no substance to the claim. At worst, people will feel duped, even when they weren't. The alternative for Apple would a.) sacrifice revenue (Boot Camp is a feature to induce purchasing of Leopard) or b.) have put an auto-delete mechanism in Boot Camp Beta. They didn't do b.) so now they're expected to do a.)?? Why can't they just use their resources only to satisfy legal software uses?

PS- Nice way to turn into a dick at the end. I thought I was being pretty rational about it, at least arguing a substantive, descriptive view if not the normative view that you wish to take. I don't care when MS or Adobe does it either. If I'm pirating Office, and I download an update through the Auto-Updater, and it recognizes my serial number as an invalid, pirated serial number, they can, should, and do, make my copy worthless. ::shrug:: If it breaks my machine, I've got to deal with the consequences of using the pirated software. Enjoy it.

Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess Vista isn't the worst operating system update ever.

OSX 10.4.11

[Ethanol-fueled]

Just reached #11 on CNET UK's "Worst Consumer Tech" list ;)

*ducks*

Re:OSX 10.4.11

[tooslickvan]

Just reached #11 on CNET UK's "Worst Consumer Tech" list

I didn't know this one goes to 11.

Hmm...

[di0s]

"Boot Camp doesn't work in 10.4 anymore? Upgrade to Leopard!" Planned obsolescence strikes again!

Re:Hmm...

[2ms]

No, Boot Camp before Leopard was always Beta only. You had to agree to recognize that before installing. It was originally only going to be available with Leopard, but then they decided to offer it as a Beta that you download from Apple. It never came on any macs before Leopard. You had to go download it (for free) as beta software.

Re:Hmm...

[644bd346996]

This could actually be interpreted as partly Google's fault, for raising expectations of "beta" software. Which is exactly what Boot Camp on 10.4 is: a public beta that expired quite a while ago. In particular, when the beta software also involves your boot sector and the Windows bootloader, you should consider yourself lucky to have anything recoverable. (Of course, it doesn't sound like Windows was at fault here, but nobody should be surprised when something like this breaks.)

In the case of the OP on the Apple forums, it sounds like the biggest problem was that the person had less than 1GB free space on the OS X partition. Obviously, this is only indirectly due to BootCamp, but it did stop the OP from doing an "archive and re-install" of the OS. It is interesting that one person reported that running the 10.4.11 updater under 10.5 but applied to the 10.4.10 partition works, so it isn't a completely reliable bug.

It is also worth noting that nobody has reported an actual filesystem corruption requiring a reformat, so the linked article is just plain wrong. Using the "archive and install" option to roll back the OS seems to be a reliable workaround. (With the one exception noted above.)

Re:Hmm...

[DurendalMac]

You can still boot to your Windows partition just fine. You just can't use Boot Camp to repartition your drive. Hell, you could still install Windows on a secondary hard drive. Yawn.

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask not what Tiger can do for you, ask what you can format for Tiger!

Re:Hmm...

[mattgreen]

In particular, when the beta software also involves your boot sector and the Windows bootloader, you should consider yourself lucky to have anything recoverable. (Of course, it doesn't sound like Windows was at fault here, but nobody should be surprised when something like this breaks.) Don't be ridiculous, this is Slashdot for crying out loud! Of course it is somehow Microsoft's fault! I have figured out how yet, but it is their fault. I just know it. And why would you just throw their beautiful mod points away on a statement like that? In the name of logic?! We shall have none of that here!

Begone, heretic!

Re:Hmm...

[nine-times]

Correct, and in fact they always said that the final version of Boot Camp was going to be part of Leopard, and have never implied that it was going to be released for earlier versions of OSX.

Now, I'm not sure why they couldn't release it for Tiger, but there's nothing tricky going on. Apple is doing exactly what they said they would.

Re:Hmm...

[Yer Mum]

Possibly, but most people's definition of beta software is software which has a release version come out afterwards, not software which timebombs so that a large part of its functionality becomes unusable.

(It looks like something's gone wrong with the reality distortion field driver on my Mac if I'm saying things like this.)

Re:Hmm...

[MrHanky]

You Apple fans are so full of shit. Here, Apple has made beta software with a timebomb that effectively renders the whole OS -- not only the software itself -- useless, and you don't only blame the customer ("the biggest problem was that the person had less than 1GB free space"), but Google?! And that's somehow worthy a +4 mod in defence of the always innocent Apple Inc.

Re:Hmm...

[emj]

I don't get it, if you only use a Mac with Boot Camp for Windows why don't you just use a PC?

Re:Hmm...

[Anonymous Coward]

"reliable bugs"...

is that how Microsoft Updates are now called?

Is this standard procedure, or only this case?

[Optic7]

This "wipe the hard drive" procedure, is it a standard procedure if OS X doesn't boot, or is there something about this update that royally screws up the whole system beyond a OS reinstall?

I've used OS X a little bit, but never done any system work on it so I'm not an expert. I'm just curious about this because although I look at OS X positively, it sounds scary to me that the fix for a non-boot condition is to wipe the hard drive. Or is this just the easy fix for Joe Sixpack and there's really a more in-depth fix that doesn't involve wiping the drive but is too difficult for the average user?

Re:Is this standard procedure, or only this case?

[gEvil (beta)]

I can just about guarantee that there's a fix that doesn't require wiping. It'll take some good old troubleshooting, but I'm sure a fix is out there. The easy fix is for J6P.

Re:Is this standard procedure, or only this case?

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Or is this just the easy fix for Joe Sixpack and there's really a more in-depth fix that doesn't involve wiping the drive but is too difficult for the average user?

On the support forum users are reporting the option to reinstall the OS while archiving the old data seems to work. There is no need to wipe the drive and I imagine it is just people conditioned by years of windows use; wiping the drive versus the correct option is just a matter of which selection button you pick and is no harder.

Re:Is this standard procedure, or only this case?

[rhavenn]

Sounds to me like it basically just eats the MBR? Isn't there some OS X boot disk / utility to rebuild the MBR?

Re:Is this standard procedure, or only this case?

[Nethemas the Great]

"Wipe the disk and start over" is the solution always given by almost every OEM when there's a problem because it is the least labor intensive for them. They could care less about your precious photos, documents or that you've logged 100+ hours making it to level 30 in a game. If you can't troubleshoot and fix problems yourself then you're stuck with this solution. Keep back-ups of your precious files and stop whining.

BTW: If you're dead set on spending all that money on "It Just Works" so you can run "Where do you want to go today?" perhaps some more realistic multi-boot tools would be in order. Perhaps QTParted to reshape the disk partitioning, and GRUB to select the OS to boot, just a thought...

Re:Is this standard procedure, or only this case?

[RSA7474]

It seems to me, like it has been said in this thread already, its a ploy to make people upgrade to Leopard..

but wiping the hard-drive and re-installing the OS is generally the best option.. but before you can just recover all your applications, .dmg, or whatever else you need before doing so, via Firewire..

I personally recommend creating a partition for your OS to run on, and then have a second partition to store all your media, etc.. that way its just an easy reinstall every time you need one.

Lastly, it is like you said.. creating a repair on the website that would require a user to download the fix onto usb/firewire then plug it in into your computer which would then boot up and create the fix would require way too much work for an old OS (when a much newer working one is present).. and most user's would not be able to do such a thing..

Re:Is this standard procedure, or only this case?

[Anonymous Coward]

OS X gives retarded advice. I set up a wireless network for some roommates (of each other, not mine, like Superman I work alone) all used windows when I set everything up. Shared keyword, MAC whitelist, the standard stuff. So one of them goes out gets a Macbook, can't connect to the wireless network. Obviously reading what was written or using another computer to look at router settings was too difficult, so following Apple's advice he reset the router to factory defaults and ran it wide open. Whatever that kind of thing is, it's not help. Apple is successful because they don't have to work with anything else, they know what sexy looks like, and that's pretty much it. They're the Victoria's Secret of computing. Anything outside their very narrow scope should probably be avoided like the plague.

Re:Is this standard procedure, or only this case?

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting from a new 10.5 installation. I ran into some relatively minor problems and the "wipe and reinstall" is exactly what the Apple Support person told me.

I upgraded my 10.3.9 PowerBook G4 to 10.5 this weekend. I was careful to backup the entire 50G disk to a much larger external USB drive, which was good because the upgrade procedure didn't work.

The basic problem was that the fsck check done by the 10.5 install disk failed (a block count was incorrect) and didn't leave me any option at that point other than to reboot. Note that I had no option to abort that check and I wasn't even aware of it until the failure appeared. Ejecting the 10.5 disk and rebooting into single user allowed me to manually run fsck but after that I got nowhere because every time I booted from the 10.5 install CD my "Macintosh HD" would not appear in the list of drives.

At that point I called the Apple Customer Service number, thinking there must be a way to get the silly install procedure to recognize the drive because the drive appeared fine in the Disk Utility program that was launchable from the 10.5 install menu.

The service guy first wanted my serial number. I explained that this was going to be a little difficult to provide at that instant because I wasn't in the ordinary Mac OS environment (I was in the installer still) and because the sticker with the number is behind the power pack which I would have to remove in order to read, which would require me powering down the machine. I also explained that what I wanted was assistance with Leopard but he insisted on my serial number

Ok, so I power the machine down and read the number from behind the battery. He immediately informs me that my Apple Care expired long ago. I then remind him of the helpful text that appears in the back of the printed "manual" that comes with Leopard that this software product comes with 90 days of telephone support at this number.

He says he's sorry and jumped the gun and then tells me that in order to install 10.5 on my Intel-based macbook I would need to first either do an "Archive and Install" or "Erase and Install" from my 10.4 install disks. At this point I politely point out that I do not have either A) an Intel-based macbook nor B) a set of 10.4 install disks. He insists that since my "reinstall" of Leopard failed, I will need to locate my "Install Disk 1" and "Install Disk 2" and proceed from there. We engage in a little discussion about the meaning of "reinstall" at that point since clearly I can reboot to 10.3.9 at any time but he claimed that since this would be my second attempt at installing 10.5 it was to him a "reinstall".

At this point I explained that I spent considerable time backing up all my files and all I wanted to do was get 10.5 to just wipe out everything on the internal drive and let me get on with partitoning and installing 10.5. Unfortunately the best he could suggest was that I reinstall 10.3.7 and then upgrade to 10.5.

At that point I just decided to bite the bullet and do that because I was confident whatever was going wrong with the 10.5 procedure could be fixed if the 10.3 installation procedure could successfully erase and perform a minimal installation. The guy gave me a case number to call back in the event this did not work.

So I just did a 10.3.7 "erase and install" which took 30 minutes and then immediately tried the 10.5 install and this time the installer recognized by disk and proceeded to allow me to again erase, partition and install 10.5. After 45 minutes of that I had a working 10.5 installation and it was pretty easy to get everything I wanted back from the USB drive with my 10.3.9 applications and data.

I have since learned (see http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306861) that had I been willing to simply wait several minutes for the secret background fsck check (launched by the 10.5 installer) to complete, the drive would have probably appeared. So much for Apple Care staff being familiar with what's on their own support site.

brick?

[Gary W. Longsine]

The term "brick" is being bandied about pretty loosely these days. It does not mean, "I had a problem, possibly even one of my own creation, that can only be cured by re-installation, and that annoys me and I think I can get some blog hits by griping about it."

Re:brick?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if it's fair to say it's being overused with the iPhone situation. I know somebody whose iPhone irreversibly died after a firmware update. He had to get a new one from Apple. Not a reinstall. Totally new one.

Appropriate Tag?

[Huntr]

"Defectivebydesign"

Lighten up, I'm joking.

Re:Appropriate Tag?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's interesting how Slashbots tag articles related to Microsoft products as 'defectivebydesign', but not articles related to Apple retardedness. Brick this, brick that, BUY APPLE!

Re:Appropriate Tag?

[Huntr]

Well, I really was just joking, in spite of what the mods thought.

One things for certain, if microsoft did something like this and the only solution was to reinstall windows, /. would have a conniption.

that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[2ms]

My 10.4.11 with Bootcamp froze for about five hours during the screen where the choice between your OSes comes up. It was just the grey background with neither hd icon showing. I thought everything was toast. Left for a while in despair and total frustration -- it wouldn't even go into OS X -- but it seemingly magically "worked itself out" after something like 5 hours. Strange. Anyway, installed Leopard immediately because Bootcamp was supposed to stop working when Leopard released anyway and my livelihood unfortunatley depends on using Windows every day on my machine.

If you read the original agreement when install Bootcamp without Leopard (ie the pre-Leopard versions of Bootcamp), it tells you it is Beta software only and that it will expire in October 2007. And that's what it did.

I installed Leopard anyway -- the full, non-beta Bootcamp (ie the one in Leopard release) has a bunch of additional features and drivers (such as for eject button, volume buttons, lots of little details that the beta did not -- it's much better -- I highly recommend Leopard to any heavy Windows users.

Re:that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[DurendalMac]

The Boot Camp beta expiring means you can't use it to repartition your hard drive. It's not going to nuke your Windows partition/drive. You could even use a Windows install disc to install to another hard drive, or even wipe OS X and install Windows without ever using Boot Camp.

Re:that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[Chelloveck]

If you read the original agreement when install Bootcamp without Leopard (ie the pre-Leopard versions of Bootcamp), it tells you it is Beta software only and that it will expire in October 2007. And that's what it did.

I don't know. I've had Boot Camp on my Mac for a long time now. I upgraded to 10.4.11 right when it came out. I can still boot to the Windows partition; I did so just yesterday. Doesn't seem to me like this is some conscious decision to disable Boot Camp with the new version of the OS. I don't know if you can still do a fresh install of Boot Camp on a 10.4.11 box, but I can vouch that the patch doesn't necessarily break an existing installation.

Re:that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyway, installed Leopard immediately because Bootcamp was supposed to stop working when Leopard released anyway and my livelihood unfortunatley depends on using Windows every day on my machine.

Wait wait wait...you were relying on BETA software for you livelihood?

Clearly you need to read this:

Warning: Boot Camp Beta is preview software licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time. Do not use Boot Camp Beta in a commercial operating environment or with important data. You should back up all of your data before installing this software and regularly back up data while using the software. Your rights to use Boot Camp Beta are subject to acceptance of the terms of the software license agreement that accompanies the software.

Re:that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[2ms]

The issues with Boot camp began in October. Go to Macrumors forums there's a ton of info on the topic there. This is old news.

Re:that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[kramulous]

Do you run rEFIt (http://refit.sourceforge.net/)?

Re:that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[2ms]

My work automatically backs up every few hours to company server.

Re:that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[empaler]

My 10.4.11 with Bootcamp froze for about five hours during the screen where the choice between your OSes comes up. It was just the grey background with neither hd icon showing. I thought everything was toast. Left for a while in despair and total frustration -- it wouldn't even go into OS X -- but it seemingly magically "worked itself out" after something like 5 hours. Strange. Anyway, installed Leopard immediately because Bootcamp was supposed to stop working when Leopard released anyway and my livelihood unfortunatley depends on using Windows every day on my machine. That sounds eerily like my Leopard installation. First attempt quickly told me that the hard drive was FUBAR, and needed a quick, swift format to be usable. I gasped and restarted without the DVD. Lo and behold, I couldn't boot!
Aw. Well, insert DVD, start disk utility - but wait! It couldn't detect my hard drive at all now. Then only my Windows partition. I left it to go agonize in a dark corner like some goth child, but magically, when I came back, everything was all right! It had detected the HDD, it could mount and test and install completely without any further hitches!
That was nerve wracking.

Disclaimer: You get the general idea, the specifics might not be completely spot on nor in the correct order. But now everything works... :-D

Re:that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[Anonymous Coward]

back up all your stuff dude, I predict you're in for a full hdd failure very soon

Re:that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[toQDuj]

I get the impression that my mac sometimes magically repairs itself as well... Really weird.

Re:that's the Beta Bootcamp only

[empaler]

I do, religiously. It's still a pain to restore, but I have an external drive for that exact purpose. (Then again, that itself is an old Maxtor OneTouch, so maybe I should just kick myself now...)

Anyway, I think it might have had to do with my rEFIt installation, now that I think about it.

Re:Need more common hardware...

[phantomcircuit]

But then apple would be just as unstable as windows!

No really the only reason that OS X is more stable is because the drivers are all written in house.

Right....

[feepness]

So you can lose all your files during a copy, an upgrade will break your computer requiring a re-install of the OS...

...and Vista is the one we're supposed to give up on?

Re:Right....

[that this is not und]

I elect to give up on Vista _and_ MacOS.

Re:Right....

[Anonymous Coward]

don't be a troll. the "lost files during a move" wound up being a bug with the SMB fileserver, not os x- and as far as i can tell, this is only a problem if you've monkeyed with your os x install so the bootcamp *beta* would run even after it had expired. in other words, these are both complete non-issues, and have only been brought to attention because people who want to grip about os x being buggy are grasping at straws.

Re:Right....

[Anonymous Coward]

So you can lose all your files during a copy

This was fixed in 10.5.1 which has been out for like 2 weeks now...

Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft and Vista a mess most people don't want to touch or deal with.

Apple and OS X becoming more and more of just another buggy OS and app vendor but with a huge markup on their prices.

Almost everyone I know want to move on to an open vendor neutral platform like Linux and yet...

* We still have to competing desktops that are only marginally different in how they fail to deliver a commercial grade user experience

* KDE klowns are still sitting around slapping each other on the back about naming everything with the idiotic K in front and doing a poor job of cloning Windows 2000

* Gnome still has Microsoft fanboys infesting open source desktops with Microsoft patent time bombs

* Open source/Linux developers still can't seem to grasp the most basic principals of font usage, UI element spacing and alignments, colour choice, and so on and instead are pointlessly trying to 'prove they are ahead' with inane 3D accelerated desktop effects no one wants

* A million sub 1.0 apps all of which do some things right and other things wrong but no single apps that actually get things people expect from commercial desktop software. And each of those open source apps depend on a hundred million crazily named library packages that are constantly getting updated.

The computing world WANTS to jump to Linux. They've been wanting to for years. They are waiting for you open source kids to finally grow up and get your shit together.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[DECS]

Right, and if the unwashed masses all switched to Linux, there would be no driver problems like those associated with Vista, nor ever any circumstance where an update resulted in problems booting as described here.

Apple earns the same hardware margins as other PC vendors, it just doesn't lose money on $500 loss leaders like Dell and HP. From that perspective, Apple's OS X is essentially free and typically comes with a year or two of free updates. Reference updates cost $100, which is what you'd pay for Linux support. So no, there isn't any dramatic software markup from Apple, there's just a limited hardware selection. Windows is a pretty significant markup, because PC makers all have to pay $30 to sell you the basic version of Vista, and you have to pay $200-300 more for the version that actually does things. Add another $300 for a word processor and spreadsheet, and yes, you can see the software price effect of owning a monopoly.

Even if KDE and GNOME could work things out and deliver a standard Linux desktop, it would still have Windows-like problems, except there wouldn't be a Microsoft to blame them on. The user problems in the market aren't the fault of Windows or OS X; they are the reason we pay for software. Vista doesn't solve more problems that it solves, so nobody is buying it. Leopard offers more than $100 of advantages, so its selling to Mac users. Linux doesn't immediately solve the same problems as XP with enough advantages to motivate users to switch on the desktop in numbers that are significant. OS X does enough so to get people to buy new hardware.

When Linux can do the same, people will start switching en mass. Right now however, the development focus in Linux is in specific projects (XO) or server/business markets, not in selling low cost PCs. Who is going to lead Linux into the mainstream? It would appear to require a hardware manufacturer. Why isn't Dell or HP or any other major PC maker even investigating serious PC sales? Are Microsoft's OEM contracts really that limiting that they can hold back all development potential across the entire PC industry apart outside of Apple?

SCO, Linux, and Microsoft in the History of OS: 2000s

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[sqrt(2)]

I agree with most of your complaints, although not your attitude. What I'd like to see is a product as professional and polished as Apple's OS X but still true to the spirit of open source. I have hopes that Ubuntu will be such a product but there's still a long way to go to reach the level of completeness and professionalism offered by Windows and OSX. I try out the latest Ubuntu ever few months and every time I find some show stopper problem along with the consistent sense that these many different parts haven't quite coalesced into a refined operating system. Canonical is at least 5 years behind I would say, the only way to close that gap is to do everything Apple and MS have done in that time but faster. It's time to prove that the OSS development model is the superior one.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[pintpusher]

if KDE and GNOME could work things out and deliver a standard Linux desktop... I see this sentiment a lot. I'm not sure I really understand it.

First, both GNOME and KDE are pretty polished, do many things *very* well and in many ways "just work". Frankly so does Windows (at least XP, never touched Vista). I find it hard to believe that either one of those three could be ruled to be a *better* desktop than the other because they all have their strengths and weaknesses. Its really silly to argue whether one or the other is technically superior (ignoring underlying issues here like kernel stability, security etc. just the interface). Maybe for one person, one is better but the person in the next cube might think differently. The biggest gap between Windows and the other two are familiarity. Once you are familiar with one, its *seems* easier. Maybe for one particular task, one works better. These are all fine and reasonable.

Second, the existence of GNOME, KDE, XFCE, fluxbox, IceWM, ratpoison, wmii, xmonad, etc etc etc is one of the strengths of Linux et al. Choice! Every desktop linux user I know uses a different desktop. I use dual-head xmonad and love it. Some friends use GNOME, some KDE, some IceWM. The interesting thing is we're all happy with what we've *chosen*. It works for us.

Third, a side effect of having (and experimenting with) multiple desktops is a user gains general computing skills as opposed to Start->Programs->right-click->foo->bar->baz skills. A user who as tried several different desktops has a better general understanding of the various types of desktops and develops strategies for dealing with them. They can handle an unfamiliar desktop. Maybe not efficiently, but they can do it.

So the way I see it, no one choice is better than the other, objectively. The multiplicity of choices in the linux world is a good thing. Why would you want to combine GNOME and KDE? You'd end up with just fewer choices and probably *not* a superior product, except for those particular people who happen to prefer the resulting product.

I understand the concept of mindshare and getting all these talented devs pointed in the same direction, but where's the fun in that? And where's the choice? You'd end up with a monoculture which is what you get with Windows already. We know that's not good.

maybe I'm just getting old.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[dbIII]

A lot of people like the poster above miss the point. The major lesson with CDE was that nobody really wanted a common desktop. People switch from gnome to kde and vice versa or to and from the default XP theme to the "classic" theme because they do not always like the choice made by others.

The other point missed is that a lot of linux users really do not care about leading linux into the mainstream - it will get there or not on merit and fanaticism isn't going to help. The focus on low cost PCs with linux was there ten years ago when you could run the same web browser on linux as on the Microsoft platforms.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[dbIII]

I speculate that the show stopper is that things are different enough that the user actually has to learn how to use it. If that is the case it will never get there until the users learn how to use similar systems in school or are willing to learn new things afterwards. I also suggest looking up "operating system" - the real problems are in userspace applications and not in the stuff that talks directly to the hardware.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[DECS]

For your needs, and the other users of Linux on the desktop, I would wholeheartedly agree: choice is great and having 200 options in a desktop window manager is a feature. However, I'm talking about a significant number of users in the PC desktop market.

There may be many thousands of people who would benefit from a learning to type DVORAK, too. There are thousands of US postal workers who benefit from having a steering wheel on the left side of their mail trucks. There are thousands of people who speak Esperanto or Klingon or carry a torch for the Amiga. Those people can form conventions and financially support minor book publishings. But in the overall consumer market, they DON'T FUCKING MATTER AT ALL.

There is not going to be a sudden surge of literature in Esperanto typed on DVORAK keyboards extolling the virtues of the Amiga by users of Desktop Linux anytime soon. Many think the Mac platform doesn't matter, and that's 20 - 25 million people who actually spend money. What makes you think that the few thousand people tinkering with free software on the desktop (and seriously, good for them if its the best tool they've found for their task at hand) are suddenly going to deliver an important product to the mass market without major support from a company that has the ability to affect real change?

The community can deliver tools others can use (including Apple on the desktop, or in enterprise development, or embedded applications), but Linux is never going to matter as long as its run by an assortment of squabbling groups working at cross purposes. Novell's OpenLinux failed. Apple's ability to develop Mac OS X over the last half decade was an extremely difficult task funded by billions of dollars of Apple's hardware revenues and was carried out as a sharply focused project of strategic planning by some extremely talented people.

A distributed community effort isn't going to do anything with Linux in 2008-2010 that wasn't done between 1996-2007. OpenLinux and LSB failed before Mac OS X was even delivered as a public beta. Ubuntu is a nice distro with potential. Unless a significant hardware maker can apply it however, it isn't going to matter any more than OS/2 or BeOS. Individuals might pick it up as a silent protest against Windows, but if they're forced to buy an OEM license for Windows in order to make their point, it won't really matter, will it?

This isn't about ineffectually distracting a handful of people, it's about reaching buyers of the billion PCs that are sold. Microsoft sees the threat posed by Linux in the enterprise. It had correctly identified no threat from Linux on the desktop.

So if you're talking about having fun, I agree. But having fun and accomplishing things are different objectives.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[snuf23]

"love how I confuse ctrl-c|v with command/apple-c|v"

True, but one nice thing is the command key copy and paste work nice in a terminal where ctrl-c is a no no.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah true. or Ctrl-Z... but that's not so bad usually... My favorite is the old X Window highlight copies the selection and middle click pastes, but I do often forget to go to insert mode in vi, and some stuff pastes wrong unless I ESC and :set paste ... but it's all good. Amazed the damn things work at all sometimes. Pretty spoiled I can run 3 O/Ss side-by-side in a package the size of an LCD panel and consider them all to be running fast. It is really cool. But it could be a lot better and there's plenty of stuff to gripe about. But not griping enough to get rid of my Mac and go back ;)...

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[samkass]

Apple and OS X becoming more and more of just another buggy OS and app vendor but with a huge markup on their prices.

I'm not sure that I've read a single sentence that was so false in awhile. To work backwards... Apple's prices are not unreasonable for their configurations, especially in the laptop world-- the issue isn't the price, but the lack of choice in configuration. (You can't "strip down" a Mac and get it cheap.) And I haven't done an analysis, but I suspect Apple has some of the least buggy software out there. Certainly anecdotal evidence (which is all your statement is based on anyway) contradicts you.

Basically, I think the Ubuntu releases went as far as Linux is going to go in the desktop anytime soon. Ubuntu got all the low-hanging fruit in getting the "Linux-curious" to try it out, I think. The rest of the world, actually, does not really want to jump to Linux at all.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[pintpusher]

I don't think we necessarily disagree here, but are looking at different sides of the issue.

It's irrelevant how many people benefit from a particular feature, so long as those who benefit from that feature have access to that feature. Bad analogy warning: how many color-blind people need a certain kind of high-contrast color-scheme to be able to read their screens effectively? For arguments sake, lets say it's a few thousand. In the event that this particular option is *not* available, those people are screwed -- they can use a computer, buts it's difficult for them and they never quite no why. When that option is made available their computing experience improves dramatically. Is that not worth it? (note, I know that was totally made up crap, but I think it illustrates the point). Similarly in desktop environments, if the user is given choice and opportunity to exercise that choice, then the overall community improves because those who don't quite conform to the "norm" are still able to be productive.

I'm sort of rambling, I know. Look, the total of providing choice in the desktop marketplace is pretty low, ISTM. Some of the more esoteric desktop environments are created and maintained by small handfuls of people who make a big impact for those particular users who benefit from their work. Those same developers would have minimal impact on larger scale projects, so to argue that the effort is wasted is really false, because it's not wasted. It's put to good use fulfilling a corner case requirement that would otherwise be ignored.

My original point, though, was trying to understand why people want to combine the efforts of GNOME and KDE. I think people who pursue this don't really understand how enriching choice is. And how important competition is in terms of pushing development. IMO, the overall benefit of having two major and several minor competitors in the desktop market (at least within the linux world) is vastly greater than any boost a combined effort could add to overall linux adoption. And it's not about linux adoption for the sake of adoption. It's about the freedom to use the system the way you want to use the system even if you're the only person who wants to use it that particular way. Combining the efforts of GNOME and KDE would mean that the current users of both those systems would be forced to use a new system that was neither quite GNOME nor KDE. If you assume that those users made a conscious choice about which system they were using, then they've just had that choice taken away from them. The result is instead of two different, happy, groups pursuing their goals, you'd have three groups: unhappy former KDE users, unhappy former GNOME users, and happy GKNDOMEE users. What is the benefit of that?

Oh, and I get way more accomplished if I'm having fun while accomplishing stuff ;)

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[MBGMorden]

I also suggest looking up "operating system" - the real problems are in userspace applications and not in the stuff that talks directly to the hardware. That attitude is a huge part of the problem with Linux. I'm going to let you in on a tiny little secret: most people flat out don't give a shit what talks to the hardware and what doesn't. They turn on their computer. They wait, and are presented with an interface. If that interface doesn't perform up to par, then they don't like it. Finger pointing left and right, claiming that "it's not the OS so it's not our problem" and whatnot still result in a substandard user experience that will only be tolerated by people who are very curious or people who rank interface usability very low in importance.

Apple gets this. Microsoft, God help us, gets this. Hell BeOS got this. They didn't quibble about definitions or segregating this and that. They realized that nobody wants "just a kernel". They also don't want "user space apps". They want a SYSTEM. A machine that comes on and blends those things together so that it all just flows and you don't have to worry yourself about what's what.

Now I love Linux. I think OSS is by and large the way to go. But until the Linux/OSS movement as a whole realized that people want a system and not a kernel with a billion unrelated packages tacked on, they will continue to be relegated to a simple niche system.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[toddestan]

Apple earns the same hardware margins as other PC vendors, it just doesn't lose money on $500 loss leaders like Dell and HP.

I'm pretty sure that Dell and HP make money on those $500 PCs. Sure, it's not as much as they make on a $2500 PC, but since they probably sell 30 $500 PCs for every single $2500 PC, they can't be selling them at a loss.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[dbIII]

I suppose it could be argued that these are post literate times and we should be happy if the beige box on the desk is called a hard drive. The reality is some of us want to talk about technical things and to do so we really have to call things by name and not just what feels good. As a consequence we get engineers seen as pedantic, lawyers seen as pedantic, anybody that needs to follow written directions or write the same as pedantic, while marketers are talking about "nuclear batteries" or whatever name feels good at the time.

Trying to sound technical by appropriating the name of a part to describe the whole is just confusing - like calling a bridge a bolt. In the case described above it's the applications and GUI that need a lot of work or users that need training (or both) - and this is done by completely different people to those that work on the operating system. If you complain to the wrong people and blame them for things you get ignored.

I discuss computers on this forum and not whatever social networking site is fashionable because people usually have a clue what technical terms mean or the ability to use a dictionary/google/wikipedia or not make up new meanings out of ignorance.

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[socz]

From my point of view, i still haven't been able to compare linux to fbsd. The reason i say that is ease of use. SURE everyone says "but linux is so ez." But from my point of view, the freebsd ports are bad ass! It's easy to get anything up and going once you have your main install up and running. Need apache? Want those extra mods? Just port install clean! Debian kicked ass withs its format for installing software, and others poked around with it. But it never really came to be anything close as the ports system from my point of view. Sure, i haven't used anything but SUSE in like, since debian died and then came back, and suse is cool, but it's still no fbsd.

I admit my point of view also has a lot to do with me wanting to learn fbsd ("unix") instead of linux (which red hat was free and #1 at the time). And sure, i read through the bsd bible and didn't learn a whole lot from it. But it is what i ended up using and liking the best. I've been able to do the most and most productive on it. The only thing i haven't been able to do on a fbsd system is play PC games. OH and run macromedia flash products (creator not player). So that's really what ties me to the windows 2k/xp world Otherwise it's bad ass! It's on my laptop and blows people away when they see my gui. It's like i tell them, vista is trying to do what was done in *nix 10 years ago. And since people just don't know, i like to say how osx is based on BSD :P

i'm rambling but, bsd's port system has to become a standard on linux systems (for me and people like me to be able to migrate to them). I still feel linux is too fragmented with so many distro's and source distro's for distro's. I hate digging all over the place to find what i need. Sure that's part of the fun, but bsd makes it a lot more fun when it's all thrown in a structured directory.

Remember folks, not everyone is a nerd!

Re:Meanwhile The Linux World Continues To Flounder

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see any problem calling the software that performs tasks for the user (like what manages files, power, internet connection, packages, etc) the operating system. That is what it has come to mean. Underneath that you have the kernel which does the most basic functions and talking to the hardware. But an OS is more than just a kernel, and even people here do understand that, and generally wont argue against that point because it would be silly to do so. Unless you think just handing someone the Linux kernel would be a replacement for their current OPERATING SYSTEM then your definitions are incorrect. If they weren't you'd be able to substitute one for the other.

Jumping the gun?

[mbessey]

Okay, a couple of people report a problem on Apple's support site, one guy got what's probably bad advice from his local Mac Genius, and now it's on Slashdot?

I don't doubt that these people are upset, but there's nothing in the linked discussion that even validates the theory that the problem is Boot Camp related...

Re:Need more common hardware...

[webmaster404]

And the fact it uses a BSD like kernel which is way more stable then any NT kernel, and it has true permissions that are horribly emulated in UAC of Vista, so misbehaving applications can't install tons of spyware and the like.

Boot Camp never came on Macs before Leopard!

[2ms]

It was Beta Software. You had to recognize this to install it. It was a free beta download. It was never part of Tiger. It was something you were given opportunity to try for free as beta software, but was originally intended to only become available with Leopard!

Please grasp this people.

When you installed it, it told you that it expired in October 2007!

Re:Boot Camp never came on Macs before Leopard!

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up!!

It is BETA. Repeat after me kids, B-E-T-A....BETA!

If you install beta software on your computer and don't back up your data, well, you deserve to lose everything. Consider it a lesson learned.

Re:Boot Camp never came on Macs before Leopard!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't wait until Google finally ends the gmail beta period and clears out everybody's inbox! :D

Re:Boot Camp never came on Macs before Leopard!

[the_humeister]

Yes. And GMail is still beta as of 11/26/2007. You don't think people would be pissed off if Google made an update that wiped everyone's gmail account clean?

"Sorry guys, it's been beta for more than 3 years. You should have known!"

Re:Boot Camp never came on Macs before Leopard!

[Dephex Twin]

Just because Google uses the word beta in a strange and previously uncommon way does not mean that every company ought to now have the same expectations of their beta software.

credibility

[Gary W. Longsine]

Ahem. Their credibility really isn't an issue since they made a trivial factual claim, which happens to be correct, regarding the term of art, brick. Your own credibility has been called into question, however, by your incorrect stance over an issue you could have verified yourself in less time that it took you to type your baseless attack. If you wish to improve your credibility, spend the next hour at Wikipedia reading about logical fallacies. For extra credit, identify by name the logical fallacy you committed.

Re:credibility

[ArcherB]

Ahem. Their credibility really isn't an issue since they made a trivial factual claim, which happens to be correct, regarding the term of art, brick. Your own credibility has been called into question, however, by your incorrect stance over an issue you could have verified yourself in less time that it took you to type your baseless attack. If you wish to improve your credibility, spend the next hour at Wikipedia reading about logical fallacies. For extra credit, identify by name the logical fallacy you committed.

No, I'm sorry, he had a point. An Apple approved McUpdate makes the system unusable until you reinstall the entire OS. Here's something from TFA

Today, while working normally, I was "pinged" by Software Update that there were updates ready to install. I said "go ahead".

Halfway through, I received a message similar to "Software Update has encountered an unexpected issue, you must restart".

I selected restart. My machine will no longer boot (on the mac side), getting to the final (~100%) "blue line" on start up screen and than hanging.

I have tried many times (and also let it "think" for many hours) to no avail.

I just returned from the local Apple Store "Genius Bar" (a whole other story - not pleasant) where they tried to boot from CD, but the only option is to erase the entire drive and all data to do so. This guy was sitting there working and Steve Jobs sent him a message, "We Mcwent ahead and Mcdownloaded an Mcupdate. Would you Mclike to install it and reboot-in-tosh-X?" Of course, he's gonna say yes. Now all his stuff is gone. That novel he spent all those hours at Starbucks writing... gone. That Quicktime of his little girl's first steps... gone. All that porn! That glorious, beautiful PORN!!! GONE!!!! Why? Because he trusted Steve Jobs and Apple.

So, yeah, it's not officially bricked, but only a fanboi would argue the definition to someone who has just lost everything on their hard drive. If it were a Windows update that crashed a PC, this McFanBoi would be screaming about how much Windows and Bill Gates suck and how he's so happy he does not have to worry about stuff like that because he has a Mac.

Re:credibility

[TeraCo]

My stance is: Parent is desperately trying to portray this as 'not a big deal' when it is a big deal. I also suggest that the reason for his position is outlined in his username.

I don't say anything at all about his thoughts or usage of the word 'bricked' because I considered it completely irrelevant to the point I was trying to make. [Which is that service packs causing users to lose all their data is a big deal.]

For extra credit, you should consider a comprehension course... I guess. If you think it would help you get over yourself.

Re:credibility

[DurendalMac]

Oh, you're one to talk about getting over yourself? Desperately trying to portray this as not a big deal? Yeah, okay, half a dozen people report the issue and it's big news, I guess, and pointing out that there's an inaccurate headline makes me a fanboy. This does not cause people to lose all data. The only reason one guy had to wipe down and install is because he had only 1GB free when crap happened, meaning he couldn't archive and install. Anyone with a couple free gigs could do that, have all their data, and be back up and running after a few bouts of Software Update. But yeah, I'm just a fanboy for downplaying an issue that, for all we can tell, affected less than ten people. Silly me.

Re:credibility

[acalthu]

I agree with your completely. This is not 'bricking' a mac. Now if it did something to the BIOS that rendered the unit completely inoperable, *that* would be bricking. I deal with customization of Windows Mobile based PDAs and mobile phones, especially those running on HTC hardware, and we use the term 'brick' only when we cannot recover the mobile phone ourselves. Of course, if in due time we do discover a remedy, we simply call it 'unbricking from such and such operation' And I've got two HTC bricks sitting on my desk right now, which at one point would've made pretty nice paperweights but they've been scavenged for parts and there's not much left. People need to brush up on their jargon.

Re:credibility

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, okay, half a dozen people report the issue and it's big news,

So far you got it.

and pointing out that there's an inaccurate headline makes me a fanboy.

That's not the only reason, just the most glaring one.

Re:credibility

[Scudsucker]

The only reason one guy had to wipe down and install is because he had only 1GB free when crap happened, meaning he couldn't archive and install.

I don't think you'd even have to do that, if you had a Leopard install cd. Since it comes with Terminal.app, you should be able to delete enough stuff (or move it to a removable disk) to upgrade to Leopard or just reinstall Tiger.

Try This Instead:

[thedbp]

Not sure what the exact symptoms are, because no one in this thread seems to have actually experienced the issue. If its an issue where you turn the computer on, and all you get is the Apple logo and spinning gear, follow these directions:

If you have access to another Mac that is still working:

1. Put the 'broken' Mac in FireWire Disk Mode (reboot while holding down "T").
2. Attach via FireWire, the HD shows up on the desktop.
3. Download the 10.4.11 Combo update and re-install it on the "broken" Mac. Make sure its the "Combo" update. Get it by searching for "10.4.11 Combo" at apple.com/support
4. Reboot the "broken" Mac, it should just work now.

If you have a bootable external drive (always good for troubleshooting and recovery!), boot the "broken" Mac to the external drive and follow the above steps from 3.

Its actually really quick and easy to fix. Hope this helps.

Re:Try This Instead:

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

If you have access to another Mac that is still working:

Supposedly, just reinstalling from disk and selecting the archive old data option works too, without needing an external disk. Of course if you have an external disk, backing up is a good idea.

Re:Try This Instead:

[GomezAdams]

Ya gotta remember that the folks that this happened to are sitting around and watching Heroes tonight instead of posting comments on Slashdot because their PCs are now door stops.

And this appears to me as the wakeup call to Apple users about how Apple treats its customers - just like Microsoft. In other words you are a cash cow, your machine belongs to them and you are not allowed to do anything that Gates or Jobs doesn't want you to do and that includes experimenting with something that may be better for you but because they didn't sell it to you they will take steps to stop you from getting any use from it. Apple is just as evil as Microsoft only smaller because Jobs the AssClown decided to keep everything proprietary and Gates let his stuff work on any "standard" PC compatible hardware made by hundreds if not thousands of vendors. Apple could have ruled the world if they had licensed their hardware and software out to third party vendors or made it open source. But instead greed ruled and Apple became a niche product.

Re:Try This Instead:

[iminplaya]

If you have access to another Mac that is still working:...

My Mac Plus is still working. Do you know where I can find a Firewire to Scuzzy adapter?

Re:Try This Instead:

[laxcat]

This happened to me last week and those are the exact steps I (coincidentally) followed to get it up and running again.

Re:Try This Instead:

[nine-times]

Beyond that, I highly recommend that anyone with a Mac buys *at least* an external hard drive and installs OSX on the hard drive. Unlike most operating systems, OSX will install easily onto an external hard drive, and once installed, you can boot any Mac from that hard drive. By that, I can plug a hard drive into my Macbook, hold down the "option" button while booting, and I'll be given the option of booting from the external hard drive. USB or Firewire, no problem. I can then take the same hard drive and do the same thing with an iMac or Mac Pro without worrying about the fact that it's different hardware. I don't have to load alternate drivers or anything.

What's more, if you put a copy of Carbon Copy Cloner on that hard drive (it's free), then you can use that hard drive to image systems with a couple clicks of the mouse. If your OS isn't working, you can boot from your external hard drive, back up your data, and then copy the complete system from the external hard drive to your internal hard drive, and then unplug the external hard drive and boot from the internal.

All of this is a relatively simple process and I could walk my mother through it over the phone.

Re:Try This Instead:

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as I am aware, booting the 'broken' Mac in FireWire Disk Mode will only allow the copying of files to and from the 'broken' Mac's drive. Yes, you can download the 10.4.11 Combo update (using the Mac that 'just works') and you can copy said combo update to the 'broken' Mac's hard drive via FireWire Disk Mode. But how are you *installing* it on that system that *will not boot in the first place*? If you can't boot, you can't install. Am I missing something here?

Re:Try This Instead:

[Archangel Michael]

http://www.ratocsystems.com/english/products/FR1SX.html

Ask Google, Google give answer. Google knows all. Is "Google" the name of the FSM?

Re:Try This Instead:

[fatlaces]

I don't get your ambiguous rant. Are you mad that bootcamp doesn't work for a few people, or that it expired? Did Apple or Microsoft stop you from getting your linux fix? Are you mad that Apple didn't sell out the way you wanted them to - and turn into a shitty Performa factory?

Re:Try This Instead:

[thedbp]

Yes, you are missing something here. You can apply system updates to any drive with a system installed, booted to it or not.

I won't fault you though, because you weren't "aware".

Just idiotic and stuck in a Windows mindset.

There is a Better Way.

Re:Try This Instead:

[thedbp]

Your shortsightedness and lack of perspective are staggering.

Different goals, different approaches, different definitions of success ...

Dominance is not necessarily "winning." Money isn't always the desired result.

You are so shallow and ignorant, its cute.

Re:Try This Instead:

[toddestan]

Beyond that, I highly recommend that anyone with a Mac buys *at least* an external hard drive and installs OSX on the hard drive. Unlike most operating systems, OSX will install easily onto an external hard drive, and once installed, you can boot any Mac from that hard drive. By that, I can plug a hard drive into my Macbook, hold down the "option" button while booting, and I'll be given the option of booting from the external hard drive. USB or Firewire, no problem. I can then take the same hard drive and do the same thing with an iMac or Mac Pro without worrying about the fact that it's different hardware. I don't have to load alternate drivers or anything.

I don't see how that would work for any Mac. Seems you would have to have two disks for that, one with the PPC version of OSX and another with the Intel version. Or does 10.5 contain everything to boot both kinds (I guess that would explain the 9GB required for the install)?

Re:Try This Instead:

[nine-times]

I'm under the impression that 10.5 is universal. But I could be mistaken-- I haven't tested it yet. Anyway, I only didn't mention that bit of confusion because PPC is going away. Let's just say you can definitely do it with any current Mac, but you might have to make adjustments for "legacy" hardware.

Re:Try This Instead:

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, dude. Ignorance is not analogous to idiocy. Hopefully that Better Way comes with a little less arrogance for most people. Attitudes like that one are why everybody I work with hates the entire IT dep't. T o be not 'aware' is *not* somehow worthy of an insult, no matter how thinly veiled or supposedly witty.

And why are you putting the word aware from the OP in quotes anyway, is that some weird Objectivist trope or something? Sheesh.

What's with the tough love, Slashdot user? I know lots of nerds got more than their fair share of wedgies, food thrown at them, and random beatings and humiliations in HS and possibly even college, but that's no reason to become act nasty and elitist toward the rest of the non computer grokking human race. If for nothing else, you'd think folks would want to not conform to stereotype and become yet another drone. God forbid. ROFL

Wow!

[NEOtaku17]

Did you just say that on Slashdot?.....

Re:Wow!

[dotgain]

Damn shame it's offtopic - I think it's quite well put.

I have a 17" iMac bought one month after this guy

[theurge14]

On that thread he says he has a 17" Macbook Pro bought 9/06, I bought my 17" iMac a month later. I was able to run Software Update from OS X 10.4.10 to 10.4.11 without incident and I also have the Boot Camp beta (1.3 to be exact). Anecdotal evidence really doesn't prove much in his case.

The thing I don't understand about his story is that he took his Macbook Pro to a Apple store genius bar and they told him his only option was a reinstall, they wouldn't tell him how to boot into target disk mode and now he's online asking how to fix this problem? Uh... I'm sorry, but I just don't believe that.

Sage Advice...

[TheRealPhilKenSebben]

Never apply updates through Apple's automatic Software Update. Use Software Update as a reference to evaluate the state of your install. Use the disk image downloads from the software update page. Wait at least two weeks from the date the update is released while watching the discussion groups and mailing lists for "issues". As far as 'Boot Camp' is concerned, Parallels Workstation beats it 'hands down'. NQA. On a dual 'Dual Core' MacPro, Parallels is the fastest booting 'PeeCee' I've ever used. Bar none. If you have 'years' of personal data on your drive you should always 'image first, update later'. Expect 'Something Stupid'(TM) to happen no matter what you do.

Re:Sage Advice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Better yet, instead of downloading the incremental update, go for the Combo Update. The Combo Updates do more than just update the OS, they do some maintenance and repairs throughout the entire OS. I learned the Combo Update lesson back in 10.1.x when an automatic update hosed my system.

It's also a good idea for the non-technical types to have AppleJack loaded on their Macs. AppleJack is a utility that can be force-loaded at boot to perform lots of Unix-type maintenance routines. It's essentially just a neat little script to envoke stuff already in the BSD system like fsck, etc. I make sure all my friends, family and clients with Macs have this on their machines. Grandma doesn't have the inclination to go mucking about in the non-GUI backend of things.

By the way, I updated my mom's MacBook Pro running Boot Camp beta to 10.4.11 on Thanksgiving and it works fine. Must be some isolated incidents with specific hardware/software instead of some global conspiracy by Apple to destroy all Macs running the Boot Camp beta.

Re:Sage Advice...

[dave420]

This just in: Apple stock rose 4%, Microsoft's stock dipped 7%, and the world got 8% more stupid on the use of the cunning phrase "PeeCee" in a slashdot post.

mostly fud

[Alterion]

I can appreciate that apple hasn't handled the issue here well, but firstly bootcamp was always a BETA on tiger, i know that word is nearing meaningless in todays internet, but it does mean - "we think there still might be some critical bugs left" for apple even if it didn't for youtube. Secondly, data is still transferable via firewire of other method, and ofc any sensible person coming from windows has leant long ago to backup because you can never tell what is going to happen. I like to think that in 2007 we are beyond somewhat " there are bugs in software- OMG this sucks" Finally it is NOT bricking, if the data is still able to be recovered and a re-install is possible that is a serious bug, a bug is not something worth reporting to slash.

Re:J6P!

[colfer]

Joe 6-Pack needs an acronym?

Dangerous Update

[HansKloss]

No other update in the last two years caused so much havoc.
It should be pulled immediately.

Re:Dangerous Update

[DurendalMac]

Oh, bullshit. I work in a Mac shop and have yet to see one problem related to 10.4.11. I've seen a lot more with Leopard.

Re:Dangerous Update

[speedingant]

Rubbish. I work as a mac technician and I haven't witnessed any issues with this new update. Its most likely caused by disk corruption more than anything else, can't believe this made news.. Same with Vista being in the top ten worst tech list. I can speak for the rest of us by saying "a-duuuuuuh..!!"

Unlicensed Software

[Pinky3]

"The license to use Boot Camp Beta expires when Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard is available to the public."

"Warning: Boot Camp Beta is preview software licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time. Do not use Boot Camp Beta in a commercial operating environment or with important data. You should back up all of your data before installing this software and regularly back up data while using the software. Your rights to use Boot Camp Beta are subject to acceptance of the terms of the software license agreement that accompanies the software."

Users of Boot Camp Beta did read the terms of use, didn't they?

Re:Unlicensed Software

[the_humeister]

Do you thoroughly read the EULA of all your software?

Re:Unlicensed Software

[jalefkowit]

Yep, Apple sure did everything they could to let people know that Boot Camp-on-Tiger was unstable software that shouldn't be used except if you were willing to lose all your data. That's why they didn't feature "Now you can run Windows too!" prominently on all their advertising.

Oh, wait.

Re:Unlicensed Software

[mabhatter654]

I don't care what "license" is attached, that doesn't make it OK. Apple sold intel macs for two years claiming "beta" status... perhaps they missed the note I wrote on my dollars that the dollars were "beta" too and I want them back.

Boot Camp is a necessary feature that brought Apple many sales of mac hardware, they made US wait 1 whole extra year for leopard with Boot Camp in "beta" status.. if the CUSTOMERS don't want to move yet, it's Apple's problem to support the people that PAID to buy their macs in the way they wish to use them. "The customer is always right" comes to mind in exactly this situation!!! Apple released a slightly rushed Leopard 3 days before the cut-off to reinstall your system if it broke, that is not acceptable customer service. Heck, Microsoft still supports installing Windows 2000 and will let you get service packs that aren't time-bombed. This is becoming a typical repeating MO (third time this year) for Apple to let stuff break then stick their head in the sand. Sure, October 07 seemed like a fair timeframe... in 2006!! but the new OS has warts that would shut people down if they moved over right now. Upgrading is not an option for the CUSTOMER'S work plan...especially on less than 30 days notice, you know, the people that buy products from Apple to use them for work!!!
Apple needs to get their nose out of their business plan and support what customers DEMAND.. that's why it's called DEMAND and not "feels like". You give customers what they want or next time they go else where. We DEMAND to continue Tiger and boot camp until WE're satisfied it works for us. We demand our iPhone/Touch SDK, or we'll tell all our friends Apple was a bad idea and wait for desktop Linux and Google phone!

Re:Need more common hardware...

[aitikin]

First off, the argument about a Mac being over priced is extremely flawed on the high end (which is usually where I'm paying attention). Second, I really can't think of anytime that there's been an app that's $100 that normally is a "given" in Windows. Linux, you can find anything as a given, and because of this, you can usually find a good counterpart for OS X. Apple has some of the best support for older systems. Last I checked, through a little hacking, the latest revision of the operating system can be installed on over 7 year old hardware and legitimately with 5 year old hardware.

Now, the supporting Linux is a slightly fair argument. They use a BSD variant and give it some support (merely by following the license they made). I am not a fan of their neglecting Linux on the iTunes front, but that being said, the only thing I'd like to see Linux have is easy access to the iTMS. You can use FAAD and FAAC (yes, FAAC sucks kinda).

Now here's the key point that has come up time and time and time and time again. APPLE IS A HARDWARE COMPANY!!! Software is an afterthought to them. They do a damned good job with software, but still, it's not their primary concern. Their primary concern is selling Macs. So keeping that in mind, the fact that they still support half a decade old hardware is saying something. Claim they're evil, say they need to support Linux, they need to sell cheaper computers, etc.

I'd be glad to take the lesser of two evils here, and in the battle between Winbloz and Mac, Mac is the lesser evil.

If this makes me an "Apple" fanboy and modded down, so be it. I just think that people blow this way out of proportion. Besides, for the topic at hand, yeah, it sucks that the hardware won't really work anymore, but then again, it is kinda a shame that people leach off of the kindness of others, like beta testers that use it after the final product is out.

I'll just wait for 10.5 to come out.

[tenyearsgone]

Actually I'm just waiting for 10.5.1. Or .2--I don't even know. I'm in the last month of writing my thesis so I refuse to upgrade ANY PART of my system, such is the paranoia induced by writing a Ph.D. thesis. However the freedom from updates is liberating. I will be saying "no" more often from now on. Do I really need that new jvm or itunes distribution? Nope.

Re:I'll just wait for 10.5 to come out.

[Macgrrl]

Please tell me your paranoia includes backing up your data.

When working as a Mac service technician, I lost count of the number of times I had Masters and PHD students come in crying wanting a data recovery done because the last 5 years of work was on a computer which had crashed and it was the only copy they had...

I'm not sure what it was about post-grads, but the 'smarter' they were, the less common sense they seemed to exhibit.

Re:I'll just wait for 10.5 to come out.

[tenyearsgone]

"svn commit", religiously, 5 times a day.

Re:I'll just wait for 10.5 to come out.

[Anonymous Coward]

10.5.1 is out with security fixes. The new JVM and iTunes are their own items which you can simply uncheck from Software Update. As for your thesis, I'd imagine that you've enabled Time Machine to automatically back up your drive, right? If an update does hose your drive, pop in your Leopard install CD and choose the Restore function to bring back your system from the desired pre-update snapshot date.

So you claim Bricking is the correct term?

[SuperKendall]

And you just lost all your geek cred trying to shoot down someone who is *properly* defining what bricking really means.

Don't worry, a new UID will suit you well.

Re:So you claim Bricking is the correct term?

[coolGuyZak]

Right, and the next thing you'll be saying is that Linux is just a kernel. (j/k)

Re:So you claim Bricking is the correct term?

[TeraCo]

I didn't say he was incorrect in his definition, just that his attempts to spin this as 'not a big deal' are laughable. I defy you to find any hint of a suggestion that I said his definition of bricked was wrong. :)

Re:Do any of the 3rd party disk tools fix this wit

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Probably. According to anecdotes from people with this problem on the forums, using the included archive re-install option on the install disk fixes it without having to wipe any data or preferences.. although it does reload the OS itself.

obviously it MUST be acceptable

[v1]

"It is evidence (in my opinion) of very sloppy software release. To crash a system on a known problem with Boot Camp is 100 per cent totally unacceptable. People (like me) have just too much stuff on their systems to be having to start over with hard disk reformat," the analyst told Macworld UK.

since so many windows users have to do that when their OS gets totally owned by a virus. (the odds of a reformat-requiring infection on XP right now is about 1 in 25 from what we see - "you'd better bring your restore disks in...")

Get the bugs out.

[jackspenn]

Would this be a "bug"?

Why doesn't Apple let Tiger users download Bootcamp? Smells like a "forced update".

- Eric

Re:Get the bugs out.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

Would this be a "bug"?

Sure, but one that only shows up if you're running expired beta software, so not really a priority for Apple.

Why doesn't Apple let Tiger users download Bootcamp? Smells like a "forced update".

Umm, because it is a feature of their new OS and they want people to pay for new features. The only way this is different from all the other new features in 10.5 is that they offered a beta that worked on 10.4 and told you when you installed it that:

• It was a beta and not supported
• The beta expires in October 2007, and using it beyond that is strictly "at your own risk."

If someone installed an update and was still running the 10.5 beta instead of the real version and it broke something, would you complain that Apple was just trying to get money out of them by forcing them to buy the real version instead of testing and supporting the beta still?

Apple has insufficiently tested updates before and messed up and accidentally broken fixes with updates and deserve to be taken to task when that happens. They've been pretty good about getting right on the problem and issuing a new fix within a week or so. This, however, expired beta software, seems like a non-issue to me.

Re:Get the bugs out.

[VGPowerlord]

The problem is, Apple started advertising that Macs could also run Windows back in mid 2006, over a year before Leopard launched.

One important note is this commercial started airing shortly after Boot Camp was announced. A later version of the same commercial changes the part that says "Purchase of Windows XP required." to "Purchase of Windows and Parallels software required." implying in the initial version that no extra software other than Windows was required.

If archive.org would actually pull up apple.com (Right now, it's returning "We're sorry. Your request failed to connect to our servers. We may be experiencing technical difficulties and suggest that you try again later." so I can't tell if apple.com is indexed or not), I would go check what it has to say on the getamac and getamac/windows pages say for May/June 2006.

Re:Get the bugs out.

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

One important note is this commercial started airing shortly after Boot Camp was announced. A later version of the same commercial changes the part that says "Purchase of Windows XP required." to "Purchase of Windows and Parallels software required." implying in the initial version that no extra software other than Windows was required.

But you didn't need Bootcamp as you could set it up to dual boot without it the same as Linux users have been doing for decades. You still don't need it, it is just an easy way to install a boot manager and the Windows drivers. Then, when Apple's Bootcamp beta program became popular they went out of their way to clarify the commercials to make sure people knew Bootcamp was not supported, officially endorsing Parallels. It sounds to me like they bent over backwards on this one, and some people are still bitching.

People are just whiney cheapskates who not only want something for nothing, they want that something supported and updated for nothing for all time.

It is bricked

[ThaNooch]

Bricking: (common definition) rendering something useless due to a hardware or firmware failure. Bricking: (software spin) rendering something useless due to software failure. What is the difference here? If I'm not knowledgeable enough to affect change in my system (either hardware or software fiddling) I'm still taking my bricked item up to the store and dealing with some d-bag (forgot they were called geniuses) with a nasally voice telling me either it's under warranty or I have to pony up $100. The MAC itself isn't giving me any options, it's just sitting on my desk like an over-sized 5-letter word.

Re:It is bricked

[DurendalMac]

1. Insert original system CD or compatible retail disc 2. Boot from CD by holding down the C key when you hear the boot chime 3. Proceed with reinstallation. Try to archive & install from the "Options" button at the drive selection stage. It's not that tough. It's not rendered useless just because you don't know what to do. A simple procedure can make the computer operational again, ergo, it is not bricked.

Re:It is bricked

[ThaNooch]

My cousin fixed his "bricked" X-Box 360 (ring of death) by cracking it open, soldering a couple wires he noticed were fried, and modding it to include better heat-sinks. Pretty simple for an engineer or hardware buff, but I wouldn't know how to do it. Bricking is a relative term. If the average user machine has to go to a specialist (even for us non-MAC users), it's bricked. If the machine tells you how to fix it on boot, and/or you can retain your data without additional hardware (as second MAC), it may not be bricked.

Re:It is bricked

[DurendalMac]

And if it's a simple procedure that can be fixed with no hardware hacks or such procedures, then it's not bricked. Five minutes on the phone to your local Mac shop would have you humming along with a reinstallation.

Re:It is bricked

[Bobartig]

you are very wrong. If it requires soldering to fix, itnwas a connectivity/hardware problem, and it was bricked. After some REPAIR work, the xbox was made functional again, but it was physically broken prior to that.

Bricked means no amount of non-firmware/hardware modification will get the unit working again. Firmware counts because most consumers would not have the specialized hardware necessary to reflash their bricked device.

Bricking has nothing to do with software and data. You have to back that shit up or accept losing it. Data loss is catastrophic, but it can happen as a result of many different software problems that have no bearing on hardware problems.

Re:It is bricked

[ThaNooch]

I guess the "bricked" puritans can hold out for this hardware or "too hard to overwrite the ROM software" definition.

Just remember that many of the items that are "bricked" are not suffering from firmware failure, but rather software errors resulting from firmware conflicts that don't allow them to perform a subset of their functionality (i.e. iPhones can be used for all functionality except calls).

Re:It is bricked

[Anonymous Coward]

Me being a puritan: ROM is read only memory and, by definition, is READ ONLY.

What you are thinking of is firmware :-D

hehe, sorry...the whole "it's bricked"..."it's not bricked" discussion is just far too amusing...I had to throw some gas on the fire :-D

Re:It is bricked

[ThaNooch]

It was entertaining. But out of curiosity, how do you think the information gets onto ROM? ;)

First line from wikipedia (the ultimate source of misinformation): Because data stored in ROM cannot be modified (at least not very quickly or easily), it is mainly used to distribute firmware (software that is very closely tied to specific hardware, and unlikely to require frequent updates).

Re:It is bricked

[geminidomino]

It was entertaining. But out of curiosity, how do you think the information gets onto ROM? ;) "Eppie fairies." Duh.

Re:It is bricked

[Stewie241]

So are you saying the EEPROM (electrically erasable Programmable Read Only Memory) is an oxymoron?

Okay... maybe it is, but ROM doesn't necessarily mean read only anymore.

Re:It is bricked

[argent]

Bricking: (software spin) rendering something useless due to software failure. What is the difference here?

Bricking: putting a piece of hardware into a state where it can't even be booted far enough to reinstall, and can't be fixed without special tools and/or hardware. Another computer (in the worst case) doesn't count as "special tools".

If I'm not knowledgeable enough to affect change in my system

Then you're not knowledgeable enough to decide if it's bricked or not.

Re:J6P!

[gEvil (beta)]

It's not an acronym--it's an initialism. And yes he does, because he's lazy! : p

Re:Hack to keep bootcamp working in 10.4

[thegrassyknowl]

How would this work with file vault? I have all of my data in file vaults. I know it's just a disk file at the end of the day but can you simply back up the file to another machine, reinstall and copy the file back and be up and running again?

Completely Overblown

[diamondsw]

Overblown just a bit? There's a bug here. Sadly, one that is not likely to be fixed, since it was in the last planned release of Tiger, but consider:

• This has only affected a few users - it is NOT widespread (10.4.11 has been out for nearly two weeks, and this is the first we hear of it).
  
• This only affects users with Boot Camp, which like it or not is beta software on Tiger, and always has been. Standard disclaimers apply.
  
• All data is intact; otherwise you couldn't access it by Firewire Target Disk mode, or by booting from a CD. Something is simply screwing with the initial boot process.
  
• Nothing here indicates that it cannot be fixed by an Archive and Install process to lay down a fresh copy of the OS. On OS X, this keeps your home directory and settings completely intact, and almost every third-party application. You might have to manually move a couple files from the "Previous System" folder to your fresh OS.

So, no real data loss, only a couple unfortunate users reporting it, and it's relatively easily fixable. I'm sorry, but stuff like this happens to someone with any OS patch, on any platform. Not news.

Re:Completely Overblown

[ArcherB]

Not news.

Not news? Hell, it's news to me that you can't reinstall the McOS without formatting the drive!

All data is intact; otherwise you couldn't access it by Firewire Target Disk mode, or by booting from a CD. Something is simply screwing with the initial boot process.
Evidently, booting off a CD does not work. From TFA:

I just returned from the local Apple Store "Genius Bar" (a whole other story - not pleasant) where they tried to boot from CD, but the only option is to erase the entire drive and all data to do so. As for Firewire Target Disk mode, you need another Mac to do that. "Do what? I have to spend another $8,000 for another Mac so I can get my data back that your update hosed?!!? Can't I just borrow one of the 500 you have sitting around here?"

Apple claims (both in-store and on the phone) that they do not do data recovery nor do they know who does or how to do it. And what if you are not a bonified expert on Mac? I guess you could call one of those McGeniuses you see them speak so highly of on TV:

Apparently, they claim there is no other option (they also do not see any issues at all with having a update that can cause this type of catastrophic failure without some sort of indication of the risks thereof - i.e, "please back up all of your data before installing this upgrade) I can't wait for the next commercial

"Hi, I'm a PC."

"And I'm a Maaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaa.... "

Re:Completely Overblown

[I'm Don Giovanni]

"Completely overblown?"

OK, how about we change the players:

"Some XP users are having problems with the latest Windows Update, yours truly included. The problem seems to be caused by the presence of a Linux dual boot partition and renders the PC unable to reboot after the update fails. Note that Microsoft is recommending a full disk wipe; but data can be recovered via Firewire."

CNet has a note up that if you fall victim to this "known issue" and need to reformat the disk, you can't reinstall Linux because Microsoft has disallowed dual-booting with XP, so users must upgrade to Vista in order to dual-boot into Linux." Now is it "completely overblown"? Or would you in fact be trashing Microsoft for the next 6 months over this?

Re:Completely Overblown

[fanhack]

No real data loss. Right. I just have to purchase Leopard in order to get bootcamp working again.

So. The easy fix is spending 130$ on a piece of software that I had absolutely no intention of buying.

Re:Completely Overblown

[DurendalMac]

You could have spent two minutes on Google (or even Apple's site as the procedure is outlined) to find out that you can turn back your Mac's clock and still use the Boot Camp beta. Or maybe you didn't realize that you can still use your Windows partition, you just can't use the Boot Camp Assistant to create a new one. In any case, you're an idiot.

Re:Completely Overblown

[DurendalMac]

The reason he had to reformat is that he had about 1GB left, which means there's not enough space for an archive & install, which would have left all his data intact with a fresh installation of the OS and all would be well again. Nah, don't let that get in the way of your rant against a problem that has affected half a dozen people for all we can tell.

Re:Completely Overblown

[DurendalMac]

If it was an XP update bug that didn't affect half a dozen people who couldn't do a repair because they didn't have more than 1GB of space, you'd have a point. As it stands now, this is OS updates as usual. Every single patch/service pack/update will have a few horror stories. If this was widespread, then there would be cause for worry. There are a handful of cases that we know of. How did this hit the front page?

Re:Completely Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Now is it "completely overblown"? Or would you in fact be trashing Microsoft for the next 6 months over this?

I promise I'd only give the offender a hard time until they released a fix. For Apple, the next 10.x.y is about a month away. For Microsoft, the next SP is 6-12 months away. I don't see anything wrong with trashing Microsoft for that long, if that's how fast they can release a service pack.

I stopped trashing Linux after about 18 hours after the F00F bug (root cause not Linux's fault, but what is).

I work for a web service company, and today I saw in our feedback system a user complaining about an annoying bug. In 5 minutes, I had fixed it, run all our tests, deployed to all our servers, and sent him an email thanking him for his feedback. Up until I had fixed it, he was welcome to flame us to ashes on his blog.

Microsoft seems to be stuck in 1990, where 6-12 months for a service pack is considered good. I don't expect them to have fixes rolling in 5 minutes, but when their competition is pushing updates every month and new major releases every year or two, and they're doing service packs once or twice a year and new major versions maybe twice a decade, yeah, I think they deserve the trashing they get. Apple isn't perfect -- far from it -- but at least they're putting forth a serious effort. That's why we cut them a *little* slack, and not Microsoft.

Re:Completely Overblown

[dj_krztoff]

Actually, if you dual-boot Vista with Linux, it stops creating system restore points :) I learned this one the hard way.

Re:Completely Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Quoting the first post on the linked page:

I selected restart. My machine will no longer boot (on the mac side), getting to the final (~100%) "blue line" on start up screen and than hanging.

So let's fix this:

"Some XP users are having problems with the latest Windows Update, yours truly included. The problem seems to be caused by the presence of a Linux dual boot partition and renders Windows unable to reboot after the update fails. Note that Microsoft is recommending a full disk wipe; but data can be recovered via Firewire."

Now. The Intel Macs use EFI for booting, and AFAIK Windows has EFI support only for some server editions. Apple added a BIOS compatibility layer to allow Windows booting, and that is indeed a feature, not something you should take for granted. And if you are using an expired beta version of this feature, I'd say you took your chances. Beta software isn't meant for casual end-users anyway. It is making news that your unstable version bootloader is not properly loading OSes.

Re:Completely Overblown

[revengebomber]

You're ignoring the fact that you can still use third-party bootloaders to dual-boot OS X / Windows, and that that's ALL you can use to do Windows / non-OSX-*ix. If Microsoft had released their own bootloader and install assistant for Linux (yeah, right) then this would be comparable.

Re:Completely Overblown

[VGPowerlord]

I promise I'd only give the offender a hard time until they released a fix. For Apple, the next 10.x.y is about a month away. For Microsoft, the next SP is 6-12 months away. I don't see anything wrong with trashing Microsoft for that long, if that's how fast they can release a service pack.

Microsoft releases updates once a month, to the point where the second Tuesday every month is now nicknamed Patch Tuesday in Microsoft shops.

Or did you seriously think that Windows XP hasn't been updated since Service Pack 2 came out in 2004?

Re:Completely Overblown

[mattgreen]

Now is it "completely overblown"? Or would you in fact be trashing Microsoft for the next 6 months over this? "But Apple isn't a convicted monopolist! The rules change when you are one!"

Actually, I'm not sure how that changes anything, but I thought I'd pull out the typical Slashbot response ahead of time. It is one of those cute catchphrases that people say to feel like they're a part of a group consensus, so they can't possibly be wrong.

Re:Completely Overblown

[Anonymous Coward]

Now is it "completely overblown"? Or would you in fact be trashing Microsoft for the next 6 months over this?

It'd still be outrageous, but we'd be pointing out that they deserved what they got for not backing up and/or testing the upgrade before using it.

Re:Completely Overblown

[ColdWetDog]

If Vista's restore points are as useful as the ones on XP, that would be a feature, not a bug.

Re:Completely Overblown

[ArcherB]

The reason he had to reformat is that he had about 1GB left, which means there's not enough space for an archive & install, which would have left all his data intact with a fresh installation of the OS and all would be well again.

Heh! That reminds me of a time when Windows told me that I didn't have enough free space to delete a file. Still, in a pinch, I could have booted off another media, either floppy or Linux LiveCD and clear space up or even back up data from there. Is this not an option with a Mac? I remember the old OS9 systems where reinstalling the OS meant booting off the OS CD, mounting the HDD and dragging the system folder over. Is that no longer an option?

Nah, don't let that get in the way of your rant against a problem that has affected half a dozen people for all we can tell.

Do those half a dozen people not count? Are you saying this is not a problem? Besides, I'm not ranting against the problem itself, I'm ranting against those like yourself who say that because it's a Mac, it's not really a problem. That's no different than Windows fanbois that called bugs, "features". It's wrong when they do it. It's wrong when YOU do it.

Re:Completely Overblown

[betterunixthanunix]

Except that the Apple mantra is that everything "just works," that it is "easy to do everything you need," etc. A software package that "just works" but is rendered inoperable by a routine patch process is news, at least on Digg and Slashdot (and similar sites), especially with all the Mac OS fanboyism that's been going around lately.

Re:Completely Overblown

[tricorn]

Well, I don't know what was wrong with those Apple Genius people, but it is easy enough to boot into the installation DVD, start up a Terminal window, and delete the old System and Library folders, leaving the User folder alone. Then do a fresh install. The only things you lose there are network settings, Energy Saver preferences and the like.

You'll need to re-install any additional applications, printer drivers and such that you had added, but that's about it. When you go to create your first user after the re-install, just use the same short name as it was originally, and it should leave the old home directory alone. I'm not sure if it will warn you that the directory already exists, but that's how it works when creating a new account from System Preferences (it says it already exists, asks if you want to use that or use a different "short name".

First Page of the Instructions...

[CaptainDefragged]

...after the ToC

"Warning: Boot Camp Beta is a prerelease software licensed for use on a trial basis for a limited time. Do not use Boot Camp Beta in a commercial operating environment or with important data. You should back up all of your data before installing this software and regularly back up all data while using the software. Your rights to use Boot Camp Beta are subject to the acceptance of the terms of the software license agreement that accompanies the software."

It seems to me that there is a lot of "this may or may not work - be careful" written in this document. That alone should suggest that it is not entirely stable as well as being beta. Whilst I don't have a copy of the EULA handy, I do recall a mention that the "limited time" referred to is December 2007. Whether it will continue to function after then, I do not know, but I hope it does, as I want to wait a bit longer before buying Leopard.

An interesting coincidence

[Alexx K]

I know I'll probably be modded down for this, but...

1. Apple releases a popular piece of software in beta form.
2. apple releases new operating system, in which this software is included.
3. Apple makes this software unavailable for older OS.
4. Apple releases update that borks installs of older OS's with this software, so OS must be reinstalled.
5. Apple: "Woops, sorry about that! Upgrading to Leopard for just $129 will fix this problem! Will that be cheque, credit card, debit, or money order?"

Re:An interesting coincidence

[Nimey]

I know I'll probably be modded down for this, but... Karma whore.

Re:An interesting coincidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Now imagine the Hooting from the Apple people, and the immediate Television ad, if it was MS that had done this to something on XP......

Like say SP3 borked any computer running PowerToys because they are "unsupported" applications.......

oops.

Re:An interesting coincidence

[the_humeister]

Amazing isn't it? Microsoft does the same thing, which makes them evil. Apple does this and people defend them to no end.

Re:An interesting coincidence

[A Jew]

And they did something similar on the iPhone, when breaking unlocked phones. To me this looks intentional.

With the iPhone, they were getting money from AT&T.

Here, they are trying to sell a new version of their software.

We know they did it, and they have motive. The "accident" excuse doesn't seem credible to me.

PS: They might have changed those hash tables in the iPod's DB to try to keep customers in the iTunes store.

Re:An interesting coincidence

[VGPowerlord]

Mac: Hello, I'm a Mac.

PC: and I'm a PC.

Mac: So, PC, I heard you had to reinstall the other day?

PC: Yeah, my last update made me have a system error and not boot. I had to reinstall my operating system. Well, you know how it is.

Mac: Actually... I don't, macs don't have that problem. Everything just works.

Or something along those lines.

Re:An interesting coincidence

[ducomputergeek]

It's not uncommon. Anyone who's used Mac's since OS 10.2 should have come to expect such things. Hell, it's just like the beta or "Techology Preview" release of Xgrid that had the nice fancy GUI interface. Made deploying with software like Blender3D or Pov-Ray easy and painless.

Now, when it was actually released with OS 10.4, where did the fancy GUI's go? (And the one in the Xcode example isn't quite the same thing.)

Re:An interesting coincidence

[stewbacca]

To be fair, Apple gets out-of-proportion press when something goes awry. We expect stuff not to work with Microsoft, but Apple is held to a higher standard (unfairly).

Even with a few hiccups, the HUGE difference between Mac OS and any flavor of Windows is that a quick and easy fix is generally available, even to new converts, with a quick visit to the Internet. For example, when I upgraded to Leopard, my built in web-cam stopped working. The fix, according to a google search, was to unplug the computer for ten seconds, plug it back in, and reboot. The physical unplugging reset something on the motherboard (inaccessible in iMac form factor). Total time lost: 5 minutes. Four minutes to find the fix online, then 1 minute to reboot.

Every time one of these negative articles pops up on /., it is an obvious attempt to try and knock Apple down a rung or two. If ONE user has a bad Leopard experience, suddenly it is front page news.

Re:An interesting coincidence

[DaggertipX]

What about all of us that have run the update without this happening? I suppose they just put a randomizer in the code to determine if it should bork your machine?
Also the iPhone update was not some big conspiracy - people hacked their firmware using known security holes and then acted astonished when an update broke. Well no shit it broke, if you do a low level unsupported alteration on your software, you can't just expect everything to go rosy when you update it with the supported stuff. If you want to do hacks, that's fine, but don't expect the company to hold your hand when things go wrong, and don't cry foul because you can't get what they never claimed to support.
This is not a conspiracy, it's a bug.
Is there some big tinfoil sale going on that I'm not aware of? Because I keep seeing people donning new shiny hats for the smallest reasons...

Re:An interesting coincidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Randomizer! That's a great idea! I can now still screw people I hate (bunch of deadbeats who won't buy the new versions of my operating system or sign up with AT&T so that I can still make money off of them long after they've paid for the hardware), without being accused of intentionally doing so.

Thanks a lot!

- Steve

Re:An interesting coincidence

[DaggertipX]

Glad to be of service... but I expect a little *ahem* compensation, for the idea.

Re:An interesting coincidence

[A Jew]

You're right, of course, but I just had to say it.

In any case, the real question is this: is the bad press losing them more money than they are gaining by scaring users into staying on the straight and narrow? I say this regardless of whether the bugs are intentional or not, although the answer to this question might reflect on that.

Conspiracies are fun, so I like contemplating them even when they are unlikely.

Why?

[mfh]

Why let them off the hook so easily?

Good Bye Apple!

Slow Boot

[kramulous]

So, is this the reason why my boot times are much slower (just kick started my incremental backup routine)? Does this mean that I don't perform anymore updates as I can't trust them (yes, I know. I shouldn't really be trusting them in the first place)? Dammit. Starting to look like I have to go to Linux full-time. I've tried to install ubuntu on this machine, but it doesn't like it (graphics are the problem - the command line appears to work fine, but don't know how to configure the X11 properly).

Does anybody know of a dist that runs flawlessly on a MacBook Pro? And by flawlessly, I mean not having to tune every, single config file.

I think the correct term is

[Techman83]

Hosed not brick

Mac bricking skit

[sethstorm]

It's not bricked, it's pining for the fjords.
</montypython>

Where's the outrage?

[dumbnose]

If Microsoft had done this, everyone would be up in arms about how awful they were. Saying you just have to reinstall your OS is completely ridiculous. And, if it only applied to machines that dual-booted Linux, the conspiracy theorists would be claiming the MS did it on purpose to prevent people from dual booting. So, seriously, where's the outrage?

Re:Where's the outrage?

[taskiss]

It's in the same location as the proof of your assertions...

I'm running the same system described in the topic of this thread, I run Boot Camp, and I haven't any problems at all.

By the way, I can boot in 17 seconds from power on to open browser. If Microsoft could do that and have zero threat of virii, I'd be running MS operating systems. Heck, if Linux could run the software I use I'd use that. Too bad it doesn't, but hey, there it is.

Re:I have a 17" iMac bought one month after this g

[taskiss]

I bought my MacBook Pro with the 2.4 Intel Core 2 Duo on August 10th. I'm running 10.4.11 even as I type this note.

I've never had a single problem.

definitions

[fulldecent]

<dl>
<dt>brick<dt>
<dd>(v.) to break beyond recoverability<dd>
</dl>

Failed boots not the only problem

[NaCh0]

My friend upgraded from 10.4.10 to 10.4.11 and now has all sorts of problems. At first the fonts went screwy. He describes them as looking half sized in some places and many are missing. Then his dock disappeared and he lost the ability to double-click icons to run programs. Safari also seldom chooses to start. Occassionally it will but he hasn't figured out the pattern. I'm going over to his house tomorrow to try to help him. He already tried to "fix permissions" with the disk utility. I don't know much about macs so any pointers of where to look would be gladly accepted. Does the patch have any sort of rollback mechanism to get him back to 10.4.10? I fear that we're looking at a reinstall.

Re:Failed boots not the only problem

[The Ancients]

Sure.

Reinstall the Combo update for 10.4.11 (the difference between patch and combo updates is (roughly) as the names imply - patch replaces only those files changed from previous iteration, combo assumes 10.4 base system).

You'll have to go to /Library/Receipts and remove the .pkg file (receipt) for 10.4.11, which will be named along the lines of: 'MacOSXUpd10.4.11Intel.pkg' or 'MacOSXUpd10.4.11Intelpatch.pkg'. Removing the receipt fools the system into thinking 10.4.11 is not on the system, and it will reapply updates.

this fixes a lot of the issues that arise with OS X.

Good luck.

How to make users move forward

[4D6963]

Microsoft, listen and learn, because Apple is doing things the right way. You've released a pretty buggy, poorly designed major revision of your OS, alright, why not, but right then you release a service pack to your previous major version of your OS to make it better. This is NOT the way to go!

In order to make your users move on to your new but inferior major revision, you need to ruin the version of your OS that everyone is using. Just look at how Apple handled it. They just released a pretty buggy major revision of their OS, but it's okay! Because to make up for it they updated the previous version that everybody was using so that computers equipped with it won't even boot anymore! This way users are more than eager to move on to the new version, despite its flaws!

Steve Jobs' genius will never cease from amazing us, nor shall you cease from learning from it.

Re:How to make users move forward

[dave420]

Vista is not pretty buggy, nor poorly designed. I suggest you see just how many people are actually using it, and then correlate that with the "horror stories". There are already more people using Vista than all versions of OS X combined. Of course there are hiccups, but the vast, vast majority of users are having no problems. No-one's going to sell column inches with "Vista's A-OK for me" stories. I find it hilarious that the /. consensus is to scream blue murder about FUD about any OS apart from Windows, but let Windows FUD spew forth.

This idiots...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't they do a f***king update right? Every update, on mac, iPod or iPhones destroys something else. Always doing shit to lock devices or making it harder to use something else.... idiots!

Re:This idiots...

[OrangeTide]

I understand them not supporting from 3rd party app, but flaking out on software they wrote and released and letting people get into a situation where they have to pull all the data off their mac and reinstall is pretty terrible.

Re:Hack to keep bootcamp working in 10.4

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, you can back up to another machine. Just make sure to keep your private key or you won't be able to decrypt.

Why the outrage?

[SilverJets]

Seriously, why should there be outrage? Microsoft or not.

The guy installed beta software and is now complaining when his computer is hosed. It is not the fault
of the OS or the manufacturer it is clearly the users fault for:

1) not backing up his data
2) not paying attention to the EULA and warnings when installing the beta software
3) not backing up his data

Yes I said "not backing up his data" twice. What the heck do people expect when using beta software? Especially something like Boot Camp which allows you to choose what OS boots on your computer. Beta does not mean "reliable, stable software", it means "installer beware, here there be dragons".

Re:Need more common hardware...

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, Apple's hardware monopoly helps in eliminating all the riffraff chips and cards that poor windows has to deal with. It's mindblowing how many times D-Link change their chipset in just ONE model of wireless card, I swear they only use fabbers free sample chips in their products. With Microsoft's hatred of postscript and other "computer sciencey" abstractions, every manufacturer is on their own to re-invent anything beyond keyboard drivers (where's the printer HID?). With all the largely redundant, slightly different code doing the same thing, how can anything interact without blowing up?

I love how Apple isn't shy about discarding old code and UI that only holds them back.

As for other bootloaders

[recharged95]

Will this effect people using rEFIt? I'm using a bootcamp partition, but starting with rEFIt to boot into either windows, osx or linux. And end up using parallels to run my bootcamp partition.

Sounds like this update really pushes me to use more linux :) It's clear Apple is using their monopoly powers to force folks to BUY more software, with less functionality...

Re:As for other bootloaders

[ToasterMonkey]

Sounds like this update really pushes me to use more linux :) It's clear Apple is using their monopoly powers to force folks to BUY more software, with less functionality... Is that supposed to be a joke? I lost count of how many times an update hosed my Linux system (often related to Gnome/GConf). It's much better these days, but messing with packages outside your system's default repositories can still screw things up very easily. There is STILL important software that require ./configure && make && make install. I love Linux, but a Mac replacement it will never be. A fine complement, yes.

Apple doesn't have a monopoly (on what, Apple hardware!?), and they didn't force anyone to buy more software. Also, how exactly does Leopard have less functionality than Tiger? Boot Camp was beta, and everyone knew this. It didn't come with OS X. Everyone knew it was available for a limited time. Duh?

Please forgive me if I missed your sarcasm, I'm trying real hard to find it. If you're just getting started with Linux, have fun. Switching from Windows (home desktop, Linux at the workplace came much later) when I was young was one of the best decisions I ever made career-wise, and switching from Linux to Mac when I was older leaves me with a LOT more free time. I miss screwing around with Linux quite a bit, but I don't have time to dick with custom kernels and never, ever get 100% of my hardware working at the same time.

Re:As for other bootloaders

[Ash-Fox]

It's much better these days, but messing with packages outside your system's default repositories can still screw things up very easily.

Honestly, it is very difficult for packages that follow the LSB to mess up the system.

There is STILL important software that require ./configure && make && make install.

What packages does Ubuntu not have, requiring you to do that?

I'll try getting it into Ubuntu's repositories.

I miss screwing around with Linux quite a bit, but I don't have time to dick with custom kernels and never, ever get 100% of my hardware working at the same time.

LOL, I don't think most people have had to run a custom kernel in years.

By the way, I've had more issues with Mac hardware and software than with Kubuntu with Linux OEM hardware.

Re:As for other bootloaders

[ToasterMonkey]

I'm going to have to spend more time with Ubuntu too I guess :)

Most recently, I had to dick around with the VMWare client and Cisco VPN client. They both required compiling. VMWare, I think is included in some Ubuntu repo now.

I have nothing against Linux, and the popular distros have gotten much better over the years. The custom kernel was a semi-recent attempt to get a wireless card running under Fedora. I used two different methods of loading the Windows NDIS driver, both required a small kernel tweak, and both were crazy unstable on an SMP kernel.

Sorry for your problems, but I don't think you speak for the majority of Mac or Linux users :\ It would take a LOT to convince me Linux distros have fewer hardware & software issues than Macs do.

Mine still works

[AlpineR]

I have a 15" MacBook Pro purchased November 2006. After reading that thread I was afraid to upgrade to 10.4.11, then I checked and saw that I already did. No problems, and my Boot Camp still works fine.

I do feel better about signing up for an online backup service now. Mozy offers unlimited storage for $5 per month. Now if only I can get my files transferred before I travel next week. 30 GB over cable at 48 kB/s upload is painful.

Re:Do any of the 3rd party disk tools fix this wit

[neilticktin]

Basically, BootCamp doesn't do anything special -- it just makes it easier. The CD of drivers is useful, but the drive partitioning can be done in a variety of ways. We wrote an article in MacTech Magazine over a year ago about how to set up your computer to triple boot that would useful for those recovering here as well (e.g., needing to recreate the volumes). http://www.mactech.com/articles/mactech/Vol.22/22.11/TripleBoot/index.html Hope that helps, Neil

Re:Need more common hardware...

[hcmtnbiker]

And the fact it uses a BSD like kernel which is way more stable then any NT kernel, and it has true permissions that are horribly emulated in UAC of Vista, so misbehaving applications can't install tons of spyware and the like.

I'm assuming you've never even looked into the NT kernel. The original design is by far one of the best kernel designs I've ever looked at. NT was horribly crippled by Microsoft when it came to the desktop. NT has real permissions, but something else Microsoft decided to dumb down at is was shifted over to the desktop. No matter how you slice it, Mac IS more stable then windows BECAUSE the drivers are written in house. The BSD kernel is nice, but it alone doesn't make Mac inherently better then NT. I've had the kernel PANIC on a Mac before, they're not invulnerable. But I cannot think of a time which I have had either system PANIC/BSOD (Mac OSX and XP) for anything other then a third-party driver.

So back to the article... Since when are forum posts a legitimate article that should be posted on /. ? I'm sure if you scour the Mac forums long enough you'll run into a post where someone claims his Mac ate his cat because it was bothered by it playing with the mouse.

Install update via Target Disk Mode

[ctennenh]

I had this problem with my MacBook (no bootcamp), and while the folks at Apple Support didn't know what to do I found a good solution online. I downloaded the combo update to 10.4.11 to my iMac (even though it had already gone through the update), booted up the MacBook into target disk mode, and selected my MacBook as the target in the update installer from the iMac. Worked great.

Re:I have a 17" iMac bought one month after this g

[Anonymous Coward]

So here is my saga with Apple...

I had this EXACT problem happen to me last week. I was stupid enough to click "yes" install the update I trusted to not brick my computer. After it did Brick, I was fortunate to search for the answer to fix it online BEFORE going to the "genius" bar. Once I got there, I told them it was while installing the update that the problems had occurred. They did not believe me that it was "Apple's fault". They said I would have to do an archive re-install of the whole system. I said I knew another way to fix it by manually running the update. I then asked them to boot up with my computer in target mode and try to manually install the update, which should be in my home directory's .Trash. They were VERy reluctant to do this, especially when I mentioned hooking my computer up to their computer and running the program.

However, he had a Leopard install on an external HDD that they were willing to "try", b/c they could not hook my computer up to anything elese without it "costing me $150 to check it in to the service center, and then they would probably just do an Archive Install.'" They could boot off an external HDD w/o charging me, however, they only had Leopard on the externals, NO Tiger. So he boots up, I need a command prompt to get to the .Trash and run installer. I cannot get to the directory due to file permissions (no root). They refuse to turn on root (even on an external hdd-installed OS!) so I can run the update. He then tells me it is time for me to go, and they can do no more.

Now, my Tiger CDs are in another country. I have no access to them, my computer is bricked. I cannot go home and fix the problem myself (otherwise, I would never have gone to the store anyway!), and I cannot reinstall. I am in town for another couple weeks, and will not be with my Tiger CDs for months! I know the answer to the problem. I ask to borrow some Tiger CD so I can try to boot to the command prompt and update, or reinstall. They refuse. But for "$150, I can check it in and they will do an archive reinstall."

So I ask if they can just boot my computer on a Tiger CD so I can get a terminal and run the update. It won't take 5 minutes I say! He agrees to do "this one last thing, but then that is it, and I have to go."

He finally does it, I get a command prompt. I manually run Installer, choose my HDD, it updates, all works.

Point being? Apple "genius bar" is more like the "apple, don't have a clue bar." If I wouldn't have know the answer BEFORE I went there, and had the technical know-how and the guts for force them to let me do it, I would have walked out with a new "archive install" and $150 less in my wallet!

See? The brick keeps the Tigers away

[iminplaya]

Lisa, I want to buy your brick.

Not just Boot Camp.

[wirelessbuzzers]

My sister got caught by this, and she is definitely not using Boot Camp. Her hard drive was almost full, though. I think the updater ran out of hard drive space and failed, leaving the system unbootable. This also, of course, meant that archive and install was not an option, so I ended up using target mode to get the files off. Took a darn long time, and in the end, it didn't quite work right (because the Linux machine I copied to didn't keep multi-fork files intact, I think; this can corrupt universal binaries).

Its like a tazer

[CircularHowler]

Dont brick me bro!!

re: Boot loaders

[King_TJ]

Umm.... it has definitely happened in the past on Windows-based boxes with dual or multi-boot configurations set up on them! I remember struggles and research to recover "dead" systems that came about when trying to set up dual-boot configurations with things like IBM OS/2 and Windows, for example. One OS would perform an upgrade over the old one, and in the process clobber the boot record info that was formerly allowing a dual-boot.

And although this is an unfortunate situation, it's hardly a case of Apple "completely fucking up and making a mockery of their own catchphrases".

Apple basically told people all along that using BootCamp on an OS X 10.4 Tiger based Mac was a beta test thing. The final version would be included with Leopard. If Tiger updates end up breaking this feature after the beta period has already expired - I'd almost assume Apple did it on purpose, so people would be more compelled to pay up for the new OS version that actually includes that functionality as a legitimate part of it.

The ability of Macs to dual-boot into Windows isn't some "amazing new thing" in and of itself... The main reason BootCamp was important was because they provided device drivers for all the Apple hardware that Windows couldn't auto-detect and use otherwise (such as the iSight cameras, backlit keyboards on their notebooks, keyboard function keys for volume up/down and screen brightness, etc.)

I've been using a Mac Pro in a dual-boot Windows XP and OS X configuration since I first bought it, and never installed BootCamp on it at all. I simply placed XP on a separate hard drive, rather than trying to partition it out on the same drive.

If you need a firewire cable to debrick your Mac..

[Jon Abbott]

If you need a firewire cable to debrick your Mac, email me your mailing address to i_love_junk_email at yahoo.com and I'll send it to you. I've got a 6-pin to 6-pin firewire cable that I'm not using right now. Note that this is not an offer for a free firewire cable -- I want it back when you're done. :^)

huh?

[watchingeyes]

How is a problem that can be fixed with a reinstall "bricking" a mac? Bricking is when you permanently ruin something! I agree the problem is bad but it isnt that bad!

Standard reply to end users

[guruevi]

That's what you get for trying to run Windows.

I know this will burn my karma.

Re:Standard reply to end users

[Anonymous Coward]

Insulting windows users burns karma? News to me...

Re:Standard reply to end users

[mattgreen]

Careful, or you might choke on the amount of elitism you're spewing there.

use rEFit

[Dystopian Rebel]

If you read the original agreement when install Bootcamp without Leopard (ie the pre-Leopard versions of Bootcamp), it tells you it is Beta software only and that it will expire in October 2007. And that's what it did.

Yep. Use this instead.
http://refit.sourceforge.net/

BRICK

[Anonymous Coward]

/me jumps on the bandwagon.

OMGz THIS IS SO NOT A BRICK!!!11!!!11

In Other "News"

[Ambiguous Coward]

In other news...

My car was bricked after running out of gas!
My phone was bricked after I failed to pay my bills!
My house was bricked after I locked my keys inside!
My dinner was bricked after I let it get cold!

The really sad thing was, I read the blurb, the article, the posts, etc. I moved on, as it was highly non-interesting. About 10 minutes later, I thought, "Heh, this is exactly the sort of thing people bitch about every single time kdawson posts. Wouldn't it be funny if it was a kdawson post?" 10 minutes after that, I'm back at slashdot and I notice, "Oh. It's a kdawson post. Fuck kdawson. Dude needs to get out more."

Also in other news: kdawson's girlfriend was bricked after his thumb cramped up!

-G

Leopard Ain't Done...

[meehawl]

Leopard Ain't Done 'til Tiger's Boot Camp Won't Run?

DiskWarrior

[Johnny00]

Sounds like it's corrupting the "disk directory". A $100 copy of DiskWarrior will fix this in about 10 minutes. Find a friend with a copy and boot with it. I've had similar issues in 10.4 and 10.5 and my investment has saved my butt 3 times now. As a side note, make sure your Macbook Pro is completely off when/if you put your Windows side into hibernate mode. I think I've moved my laptop too soon after putting it into hibernation and corrupted my directory. Nothing worse than watching the your boot loader not find any of the system files its looking for on startup.

This one time at boot camp.....

[trouser]

....I uhhhh. Oh fuck it.

Re:This one time at boot camp.....

[gwbennett]

...stuck a brick up my ass?

OMG! People in support forum are having trouble!

[etresoft]

How about another thread where twice as many people are reporting no problems with 10.4.11?

Not a case of bricking.

[Pyrion]

As they're too big to be bricks.

"Boat anchoring" perhaps?

Handy rules of thumb for future upgrades...

[MsGeek]

1.) Back your Mac up before applying updates. Also run Disk Utility from the DVD and check the HD, and run Disk Utility from the HD and check your permissions, repairing if necessary.
2.) Never apply a point upgrade through Software Update. Download the combo updater and do the update separately.
3.) VMWare Fusion is your friend. Friends don't let friends dual-boot.

Re:Handy rules of thumb for future upgrades...

[ColdWetDog]

That sounds like "business as usual" (like what we do in the Windows world) rather than "It Just Works".

Ah, the fall from Grace.

always has been?

[commodoresloat]

Boot Camp, which like it or not is beta software on Tiger, and always has been. Technically wasn't it alpha software first?

Re:Need more common hardware...

[the_humeister]

That's complete rubbish. Linux and the BSDs are stable on the same hardware that Windows is supposedly unstable on.

But even that is wrong

[SuperKendall]

just that his attempts to spin this as 'not a big deal' are laughable...

How is it spin when it is true?

Read through the threads in response. There are something like seventeen different reasons why this is not a big deal:

1) If you just let it continue to boot (for a few hours) it will eventually work anyway.

2) Bootcamp being non-functional is an issue the guy would have to face someday anyway, since Bootcamp on Tiger is an expired beta. Anyone using it at all seriously should have a bootable backup of the drive at hand, as it will keep working indefinatley but you cannot reinstall bootcamp at this point (well, unless you are smart enough to set the date back - I guess that's 2.5!).

3) OS X reinstall does not require wiping the whole drive as many people have noted.

Those are three of the biggest ones...

Basically you are coming in and saying a guy with "Mac" in his name (indicating he probably owns a Mac) is incorrect in his assessment, a fact which you (probably not a Mac owner) are in less of a position to determine correctly than he is! Once again, where is the geek-related skills to determine the most likely source of correct knowledge on this issue?

Re:But even that is wrong

[nunyadambinness]

How is it spin when it is true?

How is it "true" when it's an opinion? And how do you not realize you're a fanboi?

Re:But even that is wrong

[vistic]

Hmmm... something similar happened to me I guess regarding solution number 1.

I opened Terminal.app and went inside the .app file for Xslimmer (a program which strips away the unnecessary parts of universal binaries, and the multilanguage parts you don't use... to make the files smaller) and launched it with sudo, so that I could run it on the entire operating system.

When I restarted, the computer just seemed stalled on the white boot screen. I thought it was ruined for sure and I'd need to reinstall, but I left it just in case. After a few hours it actually did boot. And subsequent boots did not have that delay... it was back to normal. I wish I knew what it was doing during that boot that took so long. Maybe this is similar to what's going on here, if it's true that just letting it be for a few hours fixes the problem.

Re:But even that is wrong

[SuperKendall]

I had that happen as well, totally different case but I thought it was dead an hours later it was back. I too am VERY curious to know just what thing can take up multiple hours of compute time on a very powerful processor, but it seems like when people encounter that scenario more often than not it does work itself out.

I always figured it was the self-healing nanites it had to release from an inner chamber taking time to warm up... :-)

Re:But even that is wrong

[vistic]

I prefer to think of them as nonogenes from Captain Jack's spaceship.

Problems not limited to boot camp users

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately my intel mini never had boot camp installed and also got hosed by the 10.4.11 update, it won't boot. My other mac is a g4 and the 10.4.11 combo update mentioned as the fix is not available as a universal binary so I can't fix the intel mini from my other mac. Looks like external hd is the only option to fix.

Windows-style results.

[rice_burners_suck]

What? There is a bug in some part of the Mac? No, it couldn't be. I must have read wrong.

Oh, this problem involves Boot Camp, eh? Well, what do you expect? Put Windows on a computer and you should expect Windows-style results. Bricks.

Re:Windows-style results.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, worst attempt at shilling, ever. Did you read the summary, let alone the article?

How much did Apple pay you for that shit? It's far too much, whatever it is.

Re:Windows-style results.

[rice_burners_suck]

Apple paid me roughly $-6000 over the last year to write that. Note, that's a negative number. Meaning that when they paid me, the money actually went from me to them. Think of it as getting paid with antimoney, similar to antimatter in a way. Except that in this case, when they paid me those 6000 antidollars, they also gave me some computers and software, which were matter, as opposed to antimatter. Hmmm... I can see where this might be a bit confusing.

SMB just works for me...

[stam66]

I can't say i share the experience of the 2 posters above - SMB is now better for me than it has been ever. So well in fact that it's annoying. I get all the windoze servers at my work place showing up automatically on every Finder window's "Server" section. Passwords to sever shares are now finally remembered properly and I continuously log in to these with no probems. Unless it was some other kind of ailment, i suspect these users may be the minority. My 2 cents...

Re:SMB just works for me...

[jacquesm]

so, because it works for you the rest is a minority ?

Re:SMB just works for me...

[HopeOS]

Well, it works for me, too. So maybe it's 50/50...

Not as such...

[Phil Urich]

Sounds to me like it basically just eats the MBR? Isn't there some OS X boot disk / utility to rebuild the MBR?

Actually, instead of an MBR, Macs use Intel's EFI boot loader. Which is much, much harder to fix if things go wrong, and I'd suspect the bug in question here has something at least tangentally to do with that. Isn't progress grand?

This is why Apples are not used

[ancient_kings]

in businesses. Ye olde "Mac'n'crapt" features always come about like this....

Mac is afraid of Windows

[DeeQ]

Macs seem to be a little afraid of people being able to run windows and realizing the mistake they have made!!!!

Obligatory Tap reference...

[Anonymous Coward]

... could it be that Apple was just turning things up to eleven?

/ducks

Golden boy

[adolf]

Why is it that when Microsoft fucks up and breaks lots of stuff, everyone starts complaining about how Microsoft is destroying the world?

whereas...

Why is it that when Ubuntu starts physically destroying laptop hard drives at an unprecedented rate, everyone blames the hardware?

and

Why is it that when Apple fucks something up and breaks lots of stuff, everyone says that the users should've known better?

Look, kids. Broken software is broken software. Publishing software that bricks phones, trashes drives, or makes desktop PCs unbootable (if not technically bricked) is a big deal, no matter who it was that released the software responsible.

Call it whatever you want; perhaps it is a lack of testing, market analysis, or quality assurance, or maybe a EULA loophole, whatever. It's still fucking broken, should not exist in such a state, and is the catalyst in a very real problem.

Of course the software is to blame.

Re:Golden boy

[Ash-Fox]

Why is it that when Ubuntu starts physically destroying laptop hard drives at an unprecedented rate, everyone blames the hardware?

Can't find the Slashdot article mentioning that. But looking at Launchpad, I know this is not the case.

Why is it that when Apple fucks something up and breaks lots of stuff, everyone says that the users should've known better?

Actually, I find another issue, many users refuse to acknowledge the issue and dismiss it as nothing. Such as, in my case the macbookpro I had:

• Wireless drivers broke in 10.4.9 update, in order to keep wireless working I had to use 10.4.5
• The Macbookpro kept emitting high pitch noises that hurt my ears.
• Apple's support on the mess was horrible, losing the laptop for months then sending it back claiming there is no problem.

The story does go on and there are plenty of others who have had similar issues (Google searches reveal quite a few angry users) - yet average Mac user will refuse to acknowledge this even happens - despite the fact I may later learn they had similar issues and they just did [easy workaround that is not a easy workaround or even a acceptable workaround].

Look, kids. Broken software is broken software. Publishing software that bricks phones, trashes drives, or makes desktop PCs unbootable (if not technically bricked) is a big deal, no matter who it was that released the software responsible.

Agreed.

Of course the software is to blame.

Definitely in this case, it is the software.

Re:Golden boy

[Tringard]

Why is it that when Ubuntu starts physically destroying laptop hard drives at an unprecedented rate, everyone blames the hardware?

Can't find the Slashdot article mentioning that. But looking at Launchpad, I know this is not the case.

Try this from October of this year.

Re:Golden boy

[Ash-Fox]

Try this from October of this year.

I see a debate going on there. One is that the hard drive manufacturers are not making the hardware correctly, the other is that Ubuntu should fix it because it unacceptable to have these problems even though the hardware is at fault because it hurts some end users.

I would like to state a few points about this article:

• It is not a purely software issue, like it is with the Mac issue on topic at the moment.
• Many people were arguing from different sides, not a majority on one side, unlike the great grand parent post was suggesting.
• Ubuntu cannot be blamed in this case because they do not design the software specifically for that set of hardware (like Apple does with their Macs). Unknown hardware that does not follow standard specifications is obviously going to cause problems.

Re:Golden boy

[adolf]

Now that you've familiarized yourself with the topic somewhat:

The Hitachi drive in my laptop is good for 600,000 load/unload cycles, according to spec. Under Vista, this equates to about 3 years of use, as extrapolated from the six months that I've been running it. This is a bit shorter than I'd like the drive to last, obviously, but it's not too bad.

However, at the rate Ubuntu racks up load/unload cycles on this machine, on a default install of Gutsy with compiz and Firefox and a couple of xterms, all doing nothing much but idling, it will exceed 600,000 in about 22 days/i> according to some math I did a few days ago, which is so broken that it makes me ill.

The reason? Software. I might be being remedial here, but software exists to make hardware do stuff. Usually, it's useful stuff that software does. But in this case, it's doing non-useful stuff, like reading and writing to the hard drive with such veracity that just as soon as the head parks (unloads) due to being idle, some software something-or-other in Ubuntu decides it needs something else, the heads dutifully load, Ubuntu gets its data, and the drive idles for a few seconds. And then, because it is idle, it goes ahead parks the heads (this is actually a fairly important and very common safety feature for mobile devices) again. And immediately, Ubuntu decides it needs more data. The heads load. Data is read. Drive idles. Heads park. More data is needed. The heads load. Data is read. Drive idles. Heads parks.

So on, and so forth. Et cetera, ad nauseum, ad infinitum (or 600k load cycles, whichever comes first). Were I foolish enough to run an active database on a laptop, I'd expect this sort of strangeness.

But I'm not.

It is a very basic incompatibility between the way Ubuntu treats the disk, and the way the disk expects to be treated. Much like an incompatibility between a printer and ghostscript, it is the software implementor's responsibility to make sure that they're using the hardware correctly.

But killing a disk in 22 days is not correct. It's broken.

Of course the software is at fault, if for no other reason than the fact that the hardware was here first.

Re:Golden boy

[Ash-Fox]

But killing a disk in 22 days is not correct. It's broken.

After looking more into this, you are correct and I agree with you.

Beware the Leopard upgrade!

[GoramFrackinWacko]

My brother installed that piece of shit the day it came out, and he hasn't had use of his computer since. The "Geniuses" have installed with several different methods, and the thing is still a boat anchor. Every time he's been to the "Genius Bar" with it, he's had lots of company. There hasn't be a breath of negative press in the mainstream technical or financial news for the Leopard fiasco, and there probably won't be for this, either. I guess they can't report anything that might upend their darling little success story. Every day I thank God I run Linux.

Re:Beware the Leopard upgrade!

[Anonymous Coward]

You do know that the 'Geniuses' at Apple stores wouldn't be there if they could get a real tech job, right? Between the pot induced haze and the distractions as they gaze at all the pubescent boys in their store, they haven't much of a clue.

This is so typical Apple, they've done it before

[Velmont]

I use Final Cut Pro HD 4.5 for video editing (from the studio bundle). I don't need anything more - I normally use Linux, I only have my Mac so I can do video editing - that is it's pure purpose. Unfortunately I had this machine on the Internet (so it was easier to get texts and research problems etc) and one day a security update went into Tiger and WOOPS! Final Cut Pro doesn't work properly any more (can't take in video without heavy lag (unusable))!

So I use a day researching it, and in the end I find this on Apple's web page: Ah, something broke, you have to upgrade to Final Cut Pro 5. WTF? They want me to pay $much just to continue using my already expensive equipment, for what use? I do not need any of the new features in FCP 5 (or 6), I'm totally fine with 4.5.

So now I have to disconnect it from the Internet, take backup of everything dear, wipe the thing clean and install everything from scratch. Gah, so stupid. Apple is a bad company like all companies. They shit at you while they can.

Re:Need more common hardware...

[mstone]

Oh God.. not another case of 'Apple has a monopoly on Macs'-itis.

Yes, Apple has a monopoly on Macs: it's called a trademark. Dell has a monopoly on Dells; the Coca Cola Corporation has a monopoly on Coke.

A trademark is a federally created and enforced monopoly that allows consumers to associate specific products with specific vendors. It exists to define competition between different vendors in the same market. It has nothing to do with a single company locking in so much of a given market that it can dictate terms to consumers, or engaging in anticompetitive behavior to keep other vendors from getting enough market share to make price- and feature-competition relevant again.

Re:Need more common hardware...

[VGPowerlord]

Now here's the key point that has come up time and time and time and time again. APPLE IS A HARDWARE COMPANY!!! Software is an afterthought to them. They do a damned good job with software, but still, it's not their primary concern. Their primary concern is selling Macs. So keeping that in mind, the fact that they still support half a decade old hardware is saying something. Claim they're evil, say they need to support Linux, they need to sell cheaper computers, etc.

"And so the big secret about Apple, of course--not-so-big secret maybe--is that Apple views itself as a software company and there aren't very many software companies left..." -- Steve Jobs, 2007 at D5

"You know, were really happy when our market share goes up a point and we love that and we work real hard at it, but Apple's fundamentally a software company..." -- Steve Jobs, 2007 at D5

15" macbook pro, just working

[DrProton]

Upgraded to 10.4.11 on a macbook pro purchased Sep 07 with bootcamp beta (XP Pro) and parallels without incident. Booted XP under parallels and stand-alone, it worked fine. Very, very fast on the macbook pro, too. ;-)

Can we have some journalistic standards on slashdot? Has anyone checked this out? Does the person with the problem have a name? We've got one unverified anecdote relating that somewhere, a computer isn't working, and that is news? It seems the slashdot editors have a chip on their shoulder when it comes to reporting on macs.

cease and desist

[CarpetShark]

I agree that it does not render the MAc bricked

PLEASE stop using this term "bricked" around IT stuff. Here in the UK at least, it does not mean what you think it means. Here's a few typical UK uses of the word. Spot the one that your use verges on:

* I'll use these bricks to build a wall.
* It's about the size of a brick.
* I wasn't just scared; I was shitting bricks.

Re:cease and desist

[Sigma 7]

PLEASE stop using this term "bricked" around IT stuff. "Bricked" is a verbed noun. If you want to show the correct meaning of the word, you may want to say that bricking something means throwing a brick at it (as opposed to letting us declare that bricking something means it's been turned into a brick that could build a wall.) The three examples you gave don't really give information about what "bricked" means.

Also, saying not to use the work "bricked" in the IT field is no different than saying not to use "strafe" in FPS games, because strafing involves aircraft doing a flyby run shooting at ground targets.

Re:cease and desist

[Ajehals]

As my sibling notes, and as a Brit, I would assume bricked (in a non IT context) to be analogous to knifed, bottled or booted, neither of which would indicate turning into the item used, but rather that the item was used in some manner that brought it into close, or often intimate proximity to the person being knifed, bottled or booted. However, I assume it is still considered poor form to use a whole brick when throwing it at an individual (half bricks do as much damage for half the cost in terms of energy and resource after all) so someone being halfbricked may be more appropriate.

In the IT field, rendering something beyond user repair would probably be considered as a definition of 'bricked' and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if this usage was of British origin (After all doesn't bricking mean that the device is now only useful as a brick? sounds like British humour, our colonial cousins would probably prefer to say that it was functionally impaired, or that it had died in service to its owner (or some other sentimental rubbish), not only that, I bet they'd try and sue the manufacturer for the emotional trauma of having had their electronic friend expire in such an appalling way..).

Anyway, given the definition as I understand it, I would see it as having some of the following possible synonym's for a Brit ; broken, knackered, dead, kaput, and that noise you make by inhaling air between your teeth (the last only applies if you are either an IT contractor or a customer facing employee involved in retail technology sales). I would probably go on to say that 'bricked' can only apply to non-user serviceable devices, I can brick my PDA, Routers and Digital Camera, (well if I was an idiot and didn't know what I was doing I could) but not my PC (as I can replace pretty much any part, hardware or software without needing to send it back to the manufacturer).

Oh, and 'it was about the size of a brick' doesn't sound like a phrase I have come across, but then maybe its because I know that there are many different sizes of bricks out there, now if someone could tell me why the bricks used to build my house (in 1870) are so damn expensive to replace and hard to find (in colour and size), Id be happy. In fact 'about the size of a brick' sounds like a suspiciously foreign phrase, possibly French, or German (I bet all the German bricks are the same size!), which would also tally with your slight misuse of shitting bricks (in a public forum a Brit giving an example would surely use '*they* were shitting bricks' (unless of course you are southern, which is almost French anyway)).

Thanks

Re:cease and desist

[petermgreen]

Oh, and 'it was about the size of a brick' doesn't sound like a phrase I have come across, but then maybe its because I know that there are many different sizes of bricks out there
Here in britan when discussing buildings the word brick tends to reffer to a building block made out of clay and they are all approximately the same size (though modern metric ones are slighting different from old imperial ones which causes some fun when trying to build extentions to existing properties. The larger modern blocks made of concrete and other materials are not reffered to as bricks.

It is common over here to reffer to old bulky mobile phones as bricks, there was a time when they were literally the size of bricks but the name continues to be used for phones much smaller than bricks.

would probably go on to say that 'bricked' can only apply to non-user serviceable devices, I can brick my PDA, Routers and Digital Camera, (well if I was an idiot and didn't know what I was doing I could) but not my PC
You could certainly "brick" the various modules that make up your PC though.

Generally the term bricked reffers to hardware that is physically/electrically intact but has firmware that is screwed up to an extent that it cannot be recovered without connecting special programming hardware to the board.

Re:cease and desist

[Ajehals]

...tends to refer to a building block made out of clay and they are all approximately the same size Hmm, not in my experience, I have 3 distinctly different sized bricks used within the four walls of my house, (I'd go and measure but that's a little too much effort) large ones (in length) used in the exterior walls, those are about 120 years old, smaller wider ones used within a partition wall around a 'hatch' (not half bricks mind you), and modern bricks (the kind Barrat type homes are made out of)where parts of my cellar have been bricked up. Now, I don't know when brick sizes were standardised but I guess its somewhere between 1900 and 1950. The hard part is getting replacement 1870's bricks of the same size and type (to repair ones that have split), mainly as they are expensive and hard to come by, I guess because most of the ones I have come across are reclaimed. If I didn't make it clear, I am in the UK.

As to 'bricking' parts of a PC, you can, but you cant 'brick' a PC, it is always recoverable, (even if a single component is beyond economic repair) because replacement components are available, usually at considerably less than the cost of a replacement PC. I wouldn't consider a PC with a badly flashed BIOS 'bricked' any more than I would see one where heat has damaged the main board so as it requires replacement as 'bricked'. After all the PC is recoverable, a router however that has been badly flashed would require replacement or repair by the vendor.

Apple would *never* do that!

[karmaflux]

Yes, I'm quite sure the guy decided to lie to the whole internet, because it is utterly unthinkable that some kid making ten bucks an hour at an Apple Store in a mall somewhere would be wrong, or uninterested in helping.

The people at Genius Bars are not superheroes, they don't actually care about your problems, and the minute percentage of Mac users experiencing this problem does not warrant training every Apple Store employee everywhere.

Apple's a corporation, not your best friend. Learn not to be aghast when someone suggests they may be behaving as such.

Re:Apple would *never* do that!

[theurge14]

The more likely answer is that they have a policy of not assisting people with restoral and backups who just walk in the door. The printed user guide that comes with the late 2006 iMacs mentions on page 43 how to do an Apple Hardware Test by rebooting and holding down the letter D as it boots. Nowhere in the printed book does it mention holding T instead to go into Target Disk Mode. (this is however, mentioned in the built-in help in Mac OS X). From having experience working in customer service for IBM and SBC back in my college days, I can almost guarantee management told their minions "do not freely offer advice about backing up and restoring their own data unsolicited because of something they did, because if the smallest little thing goes wrong they're going to be blaming us for the entire situation. So don't even mention it, tell them to pay up or hit the door, they've already made the mistake the minute they didn't run a backup before." I can't say I blame any service department at any company that takes this stance.

Re:I have a 17" iMac bought one month after this g

[framauro13]

If the Apple Genius in the store was anything like the ones I've talked to, they're really nothing more than the Apple Geek Squad. They know how to charge you 30 bucks to install memory, or 20 dollars to run defrag and uncheck boxes in the MsConfig startup tab, but don't have the experience to actually troubleshoot any serious problem.

The "reinstall" fix was probably just the quickest way to fix the problem and get the customer out the door, not the most effecient way.

I have to say as a recent PC to Apple convert, I've been unimpressed with OSX (including Leopard). Personally, I don't think they live up to the hype.

Now I'm glad I "upgraded" to Leopard...

[brwyatt]

I'm both a Vista and Mac user (I do love Vista btw)... I was EXTREMELY PISSED at Leopard because nothing worked right... XCode is broken for me now, InsomniaX no longer works. xGIMP doesn't work, JAVA defaults to 1.4.2 (Leopard supposedly has 1.5.0), even though I had the 1.6 installed on Tiger (which apparently Apple has removed all trace of), an 802.1x was (and still partly is) broken. Finally a reason for me to be glad I did upgrade. At least my Mac boots lol. All I have to say is that overall, Apple needs to stop the lies. Big time. I could go on about this one for ever, so I wont start, but many of you will know what I'm talking about. I recommend just switching to Vista, I never had this many problems with Vista! (and the problems I did have were easily fixed!) lol

Mistake

[jmckend]

I think everyone is reading this wrong, boot-camp support is not available any longer for the OLD tiger system 10.4 because it was a beta version BUT, those who upgrade (and should) can still utilize boot-camp on Leopard system 10.5. Just thought I would pipe in.

Re: Boot loaders

[nahdude812]

There's a couple of important differences in that 1) Apple themselves supported this new bootloader while previous OS's didn't support it (can't fault a product for breaking a feature it doesn't support, you can only fault it for failing to support that feature). 2) Apple didn't just overwrite the boot loader and leave you with a booting (but not multi-booting) system, they broke the bootloader completely and left you with a non-booting system. 3) Previous boot loaders could be fixed by restoring a multi-os loader back into place, while Apple's requires a system reinstall.

Basically it's more broke and on a configuration they support.

Shouldn't matter...

[michrech]

According to the "Apple Expert" where I work, Boot Camp is 100% useless. You should just PAY FOR and use Parallels. Dual booting is stupid.

Of course, she's only thinking about her own needs, and not the needs of, say, me. I got quite an ear full from her. How dare I, a computer technician of 14 years, possibly do something outside of what she thinks I should be doing! But, see, I'm just a "PC" technician, so I can't possibly know anything about Apple (just ask her!).

I guess all the games I like to play, well, I should just throw them away. OSX is more than enough fun for any one person! If it doesn't work in Parallels, well, it was something stupid to begin with!

Bah.. Stupid slashdot is removing my /rant "tags".. Oh well..

Re:Shouldn't matter...

[stewbacca]

Parallels is a slow steamy pile. And it broke my Boot Camp partition all on its own. It's ok for a quick open of a Windows only file, but not capable of playing games very well (which is really the only reason I'd need Windows in the first place).

Hold down the mouse button on boot to eject

[SteeldrivingJon]

I believe this is a pretty low-level, so should work even if the OS on disk is hosed.

No Boot Camp - yet no boot

[ashwinds]

I dont have boot camp (did install it quite some time back in the past though). It still broke in the middle. If it does not boot like it happened for me, this link got me back on track: http://net3x.blogspot.com/2007/03/macos-x-1049-update-killed-my-mac... What happened with me: - Incremental (not Combi) update with Software update failed in the end - Rebooted and saw the spinning wheel of eternity - Booting in Verbose mode showed "Load of /sbin/launchd, errno 88" - Booted from Installation CD and ran Disk Repair and saw that permission issues were all fixed - Downloaded the combi update and followed the instructions on link above - just had to change the version number. Well now I am back on with 10.4.11 and everything seems fine.

By any definition

[SuperKendall]

How is it "true" when it's an opinion? And how do you not realize you're a fanboi?

If something is easily recoverable from, and doesn't affect many users, what reasonable person would describe the problem as major? Therefore it is not "spin" to declare the problem as minor.

Before you throw rocks you might want to step out of that glass house.

Re:By any definition

[nunyadambinness]

what reasonable person would describe the problem as major?

I would. The recovery process exceeds my definition of what should be considered minor, thus major it is.

Before you throw rocks you might want to step out of that glass house.

Before you give your opinion, you should stop being such a Jobs-gobbling fanboi.

Definitely not bricked.

[argent]

That was my first thought... the only way to brick a machine would be to trash its hardware or firmware, and since 10.4.11 doesn't include a firmware updater all it's doing is making the system unbootable... the worst case would be a partition table incompatibility... which means booting from alternate media (including a firewire drive) or booting in target mode would allow you to fix it.

It is possible that A&I might fail on you if the partition table is sufficiently broken, but you should still be able to boot, go into disk utility, and fix that.

You don't need bootcamp for a hackintosh.

[argent]

All you really need bootcamp for is to get Windows running on Apple's hardware. If you're using someone else's hardware it shouldn't be an issue.

In any case VMware Fusion or Parallels Desktop gives you a better experience.

TEH POINT!

[argent]

It's like making everything bold and thus losing the emphasis bold used to have; what the hell is the point?

IM IN UR INTERNETS STEALING UR MEMES!

Changes in the final version of bootcamp?

[zerofoo]

I noticed a change from the final beta of bootcamp to the production version of bootcamp shipping in Leopard. It appears that windows partitioning is done differently.

In the final bootcamp beta, you could delete and recreate the windows partition during the windows installation and still have a bootable installation of windows. Not so in the new (Leopard) version of bootcamp. If you delete the partition created by bootcamp and re-create the partition using the windows installer, your new install of windows will not boot. This usually results in a "hal.dll" error.

I ran into this problem with an unattended installation of Windows XP - my answer file was configured to delete the existing windows partition and recreate / reformat the partition .

I opened a ticket with Apple support, but I haven't gotten any explanations other than a confirmation of what I observed.

-ted

Shazbot! It is NOT zwarking bricked!

[argent]

Belgium, you zarking turlingdrome, if it was bricked that would mean the firmware was zarked. If you can boot into firewire mode the firmware is hoopy and you can boot into the install CD or boot off another zarking drive. I hate to use strong language, but you're making a belgium out of a wikket here.

You should be keeping a bootable backup drive (with carbon copy cloner or a commercial tool) anyway. What would you do if your smegging hard disk failed? You'd be just as copped, staring at your hosed Mac like it'd turned into a pile of bantha poodoo. I recommend the LaCie P3, it's totally hoopy. LaCie really knows where their towel is.

It's news, but it's not bricked.

[argent]

A service pack rendering a PC non-operation is a big deal regardless of how you try to portray it.

Not really, it's pretty common. And luckily it's easier to keep a bootable external drive current on the Mac, because it doesn't come with copy protection code to keep you from cloning the drive.

Having a second drive that you can use to boot from is basic common sense.

FUD

[Qoroite]

Honestly, I'd have to call FUD on this story.

I use bootcamp, I've updated to 10.4.11 and everything still works fine for me.

I don't know why some people are getting errors; but, it can't be purely down to bootcamp.

This may not even be an issue.

[grahamd0]

I think this might all be a little overblown.

The "story" is a link to a forum thread where, at this time, *TWO* people have experienced this issue.

I've been running 10.4.11 since it came out, and my Mac is running fine. I've had no problems with my bootcamp partition at all. I have several coworkers here who also have had no problems installing 10.4.11 on their machines with bootcamp partitions.

Troll Colors Flying

[Gary W. Longsine]

I see, you're actually just a Troll. Don't feed the Trolls!

Brick?

[confloption]

Anybody remember the little print stating that bootcamp was a beta? Has anybody maybe thought back to what happened with the iphone update? If the license expired when Leopard came out, maybe this isn't flawed programming.

Misleading

[garbletext]

Stop these misleading headlines. "Brick" has a definition. If an update breaks your Mac, but your data is still available and you can reinstall the OS, then it sucks, but your Mac is certainly still a lot more useful than a brick, isn't it?

easy solution...tell apple to f#$@ themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

If Apple is doing that to its customers, what are those betrayed Apple owners doing keeping Apples under their roofs? Either put them into garage sales and write off the expense of having foolishly bought them, or
just reformat apples with some kind of *nix and go from their. Apple's operating system is a total fuckup anyway. Bought a 'mac mini
  and the only thing good about it is its low power consumption, and that is probably because it is an Apple 'chip count' system just like Apple has always been. Put the absolute lowest value into a 'cutesy little box that women will fall for', and charge the earth for it. Well I remember having paid five hundred hard earned 1980 dollars for one lousy stinkin 360 K floppy drive. You have to buy everything you use, and have no control over just what that software is doing for you or to you. You are asked to trust these things, but you cannot. You do not know what or where on the machines all the files are and/or just what if anything they do..for you or to you! Apples are slower than dirt! The list goes on. We have a local newspsper that uses Macs in its offices. It is the positively worst excuse for a small town 'newspaper' that I have ever seen in my entire life of over sixty years. Misprinted papers come out of their computer controlled presses. Mis-spellings and grammatical errors literally spew out of their Apple spell and grammar check equipped office computers with total disregard for the intelligence or patience of its long suffering readers. This poor fare only gets itself sold in small communities like ours because it is a monopoly. But that is besides the point. If there were real competition in this town or others that used real computers like linux computers, these junk periodicals would soon fail were it not for the last resort of crooks: .... use the courts and regulatory agencies to legislate and injunct the competition out of business

could be worse...

[shentino]

Hey at least it's not like an iPhone this time...

truth and good stories

[bandmassa]

I won't brick them, they just won't but under boot camp, reboot under the install disk, select the start up disk and platform, then reboot under Mac OS. Sheesh, talk about an effing beat up.

They do it all the time

[diodia_teres]

I have noticed since Jaguar that when ever mac comes out with a major update to a new cat, the update that they send out to the previous OS is buggy as hell, and usually makes you buy the new feline update. The best thing to do is stop updating within a six months of any major update. "Just because you are paranoid does not mean everyone's not out to get you"

Think Different!

[Anonymous Coward]

If it kills the computer's OS to a point where the hard drive needs to be wiped and the OS reinstalled... it's bricked.

I know Apple rips off a lot of Microsoft's tech, but it's kind of amazing how they wanted to rip off the BSoD right when MS had abandoned it. The real irony is how they just started mocking MS and shouting about the BSoD... then they released Leopard.

The REAL irony is how they are censoring forum posts from the Apple forums. What was that complaint they used to have, about MS being a marketting company first and a software company second? That's kind of strange, because MS has never censored their forums, they don't leave stuff out of TechNet, and they don't deny problems exist. Unlike Apple.

Leopard: Think Different!
Leopard: It just doesn't work!

not that bad

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, it doesn't really apply anymore since the beta is expired. Second of all, beta software is given with the knowledge that it may mess up the system; the people took this risk on old macs that didn't even have the intended OS (leopard) and then installed an update on top of this. Even then, there is a way to get data back by connecting two macs together.

Mac OS Upgrades

[jmeboi]

Have any other long-term Mac users noticed that the release of an OS upgrade from Apple is usually coupled with a series of random bugs in the further updates of the previous OS? hmmmn.